download.file {base} | R Documentation

## Download File from the Internet

### Description

This function can be used to download a file from the Internet either using a helper application such as `wget` or by making a direct socket connection.

### Usage

    download.file(url, destfile, method = "auto", quiet=FALSE)

### Arguments

`url` | A character string with the URL of a file to be downloaded.
`destfile` | A character string with the name where the downloaded file is saved.
`method` | Tool to be used for downloading files. Currently download methods `"auto"`, `"wget"`, `"lynx"` `"cp"` and `"socket"` are available. To use `"wget"` or `"lynx"` the executable must be installed on your system and in your path. To use `"socket"` the file must be on an `HTTP` server, in plain text, and your system must allow socket connections to be opened to that server.
`quiet` | If `TRUE`, suppress status messages from the download tool (if any).

### Details

The function `download.file` can be used to download a single file as described by `url` from the internet and store it in `destfile`. It makes a system call to the tool given by `method`, the respective program must be installed on your system and be in the search path for executables. If method `"cp"` is used, then the `url` must start with `"file:"` and give the path to a local file. Method `"auto"` (the default) searches for available tools at runtime. The `url` must start with a type specification such as `"http://"`, `"ftp://"` or `"file:"`.

### Note

Cacheing proxies and firewalls may well not allow method `"socket"` socket to be used.