On 05/03/2018 11:14 PM, Henrik Bengtsson wrote:
Also, as mentioned in my
https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-devel/2012-August/064739.html, when
not specifying the mode argument, the default on Windows is mode = "w"
*except* for certain, case-sensitive, filename extensions:
if(missing(mode) && length(grep("\\.(gz|bz2|xz|tgz|zip|rda|RData)$", url)))
mode <- "wb"
Just like the need for mode = "wb" on Windows, the above
special-file-extension-hack is only happening on Windows, and is only
documented in ?download.file if you're on Windows; so someone who's on
Linux/macOS trying to help someone on Windows may not be aware of
this. This adds to even more confusions, e.g. "works for me".
If we were designing the API today, it would probably make more sense
not to convert any line endings by default. Today's editors _usually_
can cope with different line endings and it is probably easier to detect
that a text file has incorrect line endings rather than detecting that a
binary file has been corrupted by an attempt to convert line endings.
But whether to change existing, documented behavior is a different
question. In order to help users and programmers who do not read the
documentation carefully we would create problems for users and
programmers who do. The current heuristic/hack is in line with the
compatibility approach: it detects files that are obviously binary, so
it changes the default behavior only for cases when it would obviously
cause damage.
Tomas
/Henrik
On Thu, May 3, 2018 at 7:27 AM, Joris Meys <jorism...@gmail.com> wrote:
Thank you Henrik and Martin for explaining what was going on. Very
insightful!
On Thu, May 3, 2018 at 4:21 PM, Jeroen Ooms <jeroeno...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, May 3, 2018 at 2:42 PM, Henrik Bengtsson
<henrik.bengts...@gmail.com> wrote:
Use mode="wb" when you download the file. See
https://github.com/HenrikBengtsson/Wishlist-for-R/issues/30.
R core, and others, is there a good argument for why we are not making
this
the default download mode? It seems like a such a simple fix to such a
common "mistake".
I'd like to second this feature request. This default behaviour is
unexpected and often leads to r scripts that were written on
mac/linux, to produce corrupted files on windows, checksum mismatches,
etc.
Even for text files, the default should be to download the file as-is.
Trying to "fix" line-endings should be opt-in, never the default.
Downloading a file via a browser or ftp client on windows also doesn't
change the file, why should R?
I third the feature request.
On Thu, May 3, 2018 at 3:02 PM, Duncan Murdoch <murdoch.dun...@gmail.com>
wrote:
Many downloads are text files (HTML, CSV, etc.), and if those are
downloaded
in binary, a Windows user might end up with a file that Notepad can't
handle, because it would have Unix-style line endings.
True but I don't think this is relevant. The same holds e.g. for the R
files in source packages, which also have unix line endings. Most
Windows users will use an actual editor that understands both types of
line endings, or can convert between the two.
Downloading-file should do just that.
Again, I agree. In my (limited) experience the only program that fails to
properly display \n as a line ending, is Notepad. But it can still open the
file regardless. If line ending conflicts cause bugs, it's almost always a
unix-like OS struggling with Windows-style endings. I have yet to meet the
first one the other way around.
Cheers
Joris
--
Joris Meys
Statistical consultant
Department of Data Analysis and Mathematical Modelling
Ghent University
Coupure Links 653, B-9000 Gent (Belgium)
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