How to skip missing files when downloading multiples files from the web?

Question

I have a question about downloading files. I know how to download files, using the download.file function. I need to download multiple files from a particular site,

Answer 1

You can do this using tryCatch. This function will try the operation you feed it, and provide you with a way to dealing with errors. For example, in your case an error could simply lead to skipping the file and ignoring the error. For example:

skip_with_message = simpleError('Did not work out')
tryCatch(print(bla), error = function(e) skip_with_message)
# <simpleError: Did not work out>

Notice that the error here is that the bla object does not exist.