get online data every hour in R

Question

I would like to get the Observatory data every hour they update the forecast.

My one time data extract code is following.

library(RCurl)
web <- getURL         


        

Answer 1

I think the reasonable course of action is to write a script that does all you want to do (downloading data, cleansing, storing, ...) and than use something like:

• Task Scheduler under Windows link
• Cronjob under Linux link
• ICal, crontab, CronniX, Maintidget, Macaroni and MacJanitor, Auto Scheduled Task, Launchd Editor, launchctl on Mac link

... to schedule it - meaning to start it at regular intervals instead of having one R session run and waiting all the time via e.g. Sys.sleep(60*60).

Answer 2

You probably could use Sys.sleep() but it smells like bad code.

Instead, set up a cron job to run your code updating every hour. Then your script is simple, and more robust.