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Download files and directories from OSF

Source: R/osf_download.R
osf_download.Rd

Files stored on OSF can be downloaded locally by passing an osf_tbl_file that contains the files and folders of interest. Use path to specify where the files should be downloaded, otherwise they are downloaded to your working directory by default.

Usage

osf_download(
  x,
  path = NULL,
  recurse = FALSE,
  conflicts = "error",
  verbose = FALSE,
  progress = FALSE
)

Arguments

x

An osf_tbl_file containing a single file or directory.

path

Path pointing to a local directory where the downloaded files will be saved. Default is to use the current working directory.

recurse

Applies only to OSF directories. If TRUE, a directory is fully recursed and all nested files and subdirectories are downloaded. Alternatively, a positive number will determine the number of levels to recurse.

conflicts

This determines what happens when a file with the same name exists at the specified destination. Can be one of the following:

  • "error" (the default): throw an error and abort the file transfer operation.

  • "skip": skip the conflicting file(s) and continue transferring the remaining files.

  • "overwrite": replace the existing file with the transferred copy.

verbose

Logical, indicating whether to print informative messages about interactions with the OSF API (default FALSE).

progress

Logical, if TRUE progress bars are displayed for each file transfer. Mainly useful for transferring large files. For tracking lots of small files, setting verbose = TRUE is more informative.

Value

The same osf_tbl_file passed to x with a new column, "local_path", containing paths to the local files.

Implementation details

Directories are always downloaded from OSF as zip files that contain its entire contents. The logic for handling conflicts and recursion is implemented locally, acting on these files in a temporary location and copying them to path as needed. This creates a gotcha if you're downloading directories with large files and assuming that setting conflicts = "skip" and/or limiting recursion will reduce the number of files you're downloading. In such a case, a better strategy would be to use osf_ls_files() to list the contents of the directory and pass that output to osf_download().

A note about synchronization

While osf_download() and osf_upload() allow you to conveniently shuttle files back and forth between OSF and your local machine, it's important to note that they are not file synchronization functions. In contrast to something like rsync, osf_download()/osf_upload() do not take into account a file's contents or modification time. Whether you're uploading or downloading, if conflicts = "overwrite", osfr will overwrite the existing file regardless of whether it is the more recent copy. You have been warned.

See also

Examples

if (FALSE) { # \dontrun{
# download a single file
analysis_plan <- osf_retrieve_file("2ryha") %>%
  osf_download()

# verify the file was downloaded locally
file.exists(analysis_plan$local_path)
} # }