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Rebuild the Catalogue of Life snapshot

Usage

build_col(
  version = format(Sys.Date(), "%Y"),
  archive = NULL,
  dir = build_dir(),
  db = td_connect()
)

Arguments

version

snapshot version to write, e.g. "2026"

archive

path to the COL Darwin Core Archive; downloaded if missing

dir

directory for build inputs and outputs

db

a duckdb connection

Value

the paths written, invisibly

Details

COL publishes a Darwin Core Archive whose scientificName carries the authorship – Acanthocerataceae Crawford & Round. taxadb wants the canonical name, since authorship abbreviations vary too much between providers to match on. COL also supplies scientificNameAuthorship separately, so the canonical name is the one with that suffix removed.

COL marks accepted names by leaving acceptedNameUsageID empty, and distinguishes accepted from provisionally accepted; both are accepted in the sense that matters here, that they are not a synonym of anything else, so both get acceptedNameUsageID set to their own taxonID.

Examples

if (FALSE) { # \dontrun{
build_col("2026")
} # }