[R-pkg-devel] Dealing with not so temporary files
Duncan gave one option. The other option is to provide a specific write2disk() function or so that allows the user to determine whether he/she wants to save the data. Then the user can decide exactly where he wants to find it. The other important part is the format in which it's saved. Users can simply use save() or write.csv() (or any of the readr functions if you must) to store whatever data they want in the format they want. There's a lot of database connections possible as well if that's needed. The only reason I see to provide a specific write function or argument, is when the storage is done in a nonstandard format. And then it makes sense to provide both read_myformat() and write_myformat() in some form. That's what I as an R user would expect. Fwiw: I have seen the commotion on that discussion recently as well, but this is really nothing new. For as long as I remember, writing to disk only happens when you use a function that does explicitly that. Which makes sense as well, as eg my students often run R in a shared environment during classes, and sysadmins don't like software that starts writing files everywhere. Cheers Joris On Tue, Mar 13, 2018 at 12:32 AM, Duncan Murdoch <murdoch.duncan at gmail.com> wrote:
On 12/03/2018 6:26 PM, Roy Mendelssohn - NOAA Federal wrote:
Hi All: Recently there was a proper admonishment to a developer that it is bad etiquette writing to a user's home directory, and for temporary files use the functions tempdir() and tempfile(). I am working on a new package (presently on Github) that downloads data from a remote server, reads the data into R, but I would like to save that file for the user to access later if they so desire. Saving to the "temp directory" is not a good option for that, want to put it somewhere where the user can easily find it. What is the proper etiquette for this? Even if I provide an argument for the user to specify the location to save the file, I should provide a default location.
Why not provide an argument whose default is something given by tempfile()? Duncan Murdoch
Any suggestions appreciated. -Roy ********************** "The contents of this message do not reflect any position of the U.S. Government or NOAA." ********************** Roy Mendelssohn Supervisory Operations Research Analyst NOAA/NMFS Environmental Research Division Southwest Fisheries Science Center ***Note new street address*** 110 McAllister Way Santa Cruz, CA 95060 Phone: (831)-420-3666 Fax: (831) 420-3980 e-mail: Roy.Mendelssohn at noaa.gov www: http://www.pfeg.noaa.gov/ "Old age and treachery will overcome youth and skill." "From those who have been given much, much will be expected" "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice" -MLK Jr.
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Joris Meys Statistical consultant Department of Data Analysis and Mathematical Modelling Ghent University Coupure Links 653, B-9000 Gent (Belgium) <https://maps.google.com/?q=Coupure+links+653,%C2%A0B-9000+Gent,%C2%A0Belgium&entry=gmail&source=g> tel: +32 (0)9 264 61 79 ----------- Biowiskundedagen 2017-2018 http://www.biowiskundedagen.ugent.be/ ------------------------------- Disclaimer : http://helpdesk.ugent.be/e-maildisclaimer.php [[alternative HTML version deleted]]