[R] download.file not working

[Henrik Bengtsson]

On 10/10/07, Gustaf Rydevik <gustaf.rydevik at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I'm trying to download a file from the net, and the download.file
> command leaves it corrupted, i.e excel cannot open it. It seems as if
> it's going ok, however.
> Does anyone have an idea of what's going on?
>
> regards,
>
> Gustaf Rydevik
>
> ----
> >download.file(url="http://www.who.int/entity/whosis/whostat2006_demographics.xls",destfile="whodem.xls")
> trying URL 'http://www.who.int/entity/whosis/whostat2006_demographics.xls'
> Content type 'application/vnd.ms-excel' length 77824 bytes
> opened URL
> downloaded 76Kb

So, if you download the same file using a web browser it works, ehe?
Then look at the file size and you'll most likely find that it is
different from when you use R code.  Conclusion?  Something is
different and it works in the web browser so you might tell R to do
something different from what you would expect.  Hint, look at the set
of arguments download.file() takes.

That's my $0.02

Henrik


> > sessionInfo()
> R version 2.5.0 (2007-04-23)
> i386-pc-mingw32
>
> locale:
> LC_COLLATE=Swedish_Sweden.1252;LC_CTYPE=Swedish_Sweden.1252;LC_MONETARY=Swedish_Sweden.1252;LC_NUMERIC=C;LC_TIME=Swedish_Sweden.1252
>
> attached base packages:
> [1] "stats"     "graphics"  "grDevices" "utils"     "datasets"  "methods"
> [7] "base"
>
> other attached packages:
> RWinEdt
> "1.7-5"
> > Sys.getlocale()
> [1] "LC_COLLATE=Swedish_Sweden.1252;LC_CTYPE=Swedish_Sweden.1252;LC_MONETARY=Swedish_Sweden.1252;LC_NUMERIC=C;LC_TIME=Swedish_Sweden.1252"
> >
>
>
> --
> Gustaf Rydevik, M.Sci.
> tel: +46(0)703 051 451
> address:Essingetorget 40,112 66 Stockholm, SE
> skype:gustaf_rydevik
>
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