Sourcing R script over HTTPS

Question

Is there some way to source an R script from the web?

e.g. source(\'http://github.com/project/R/file.r\')

Reason: I currently have a project tha

Answer 1

Yes, it is possible and worked for me right away.

R> source("http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=zdBYP5Ft")
R> test()
[1] "passed"

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Regarding the HTTPS part, it isn't supported by internal R code. However, R can use external utilities like wget or curl to fetch https:// URLs. One will need to write additional code to be able to source the files.

Sample code might be like this:

wget.and.source <- function(url) {
  fname <- tempfile()
  download.file(url, fname, method="wget")
  source(fname)
  unlink(fname)
}

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There is a Windows-only solution too: start R with --internet2 commandline option. This will switch all the internet code in R to using IE, and consequently HTTPS will work.