Downloading large files with R/RCurl efficiently

Question

I see that many examples for downloading binary files with RCurl are like such:

library(\"RCurl\")
curl = getCurlHandle()
bfile=getBinaryURL (
        \"http         


        

Answer 1

um.. use mode = 'wb' :) ..run this and follow along w/ my comments.

# create a temporary file and a temporary directory on your local disk
tf <- tempfile()
td <- tempdir()

# run the download file function, download as binary..  save the result to the temporary file
download.file(
    "http://sourceforge.net/projects/peazip/files/4.8/peazip_portable-4.8.WINDOWS.zip/download",
    tf ,
    mode = 'wb' 
)

# unzip the files to the temporary directory
files <- unzip( tf , exdir = td )

# here are your files
files