Using R to download zipped data file, extract, and import data

Question

@EZGraphs on Twitter writes: \"Lots of online csvs are zipped. Is there a way to download, unzip the archive, and load the data to a data.frame using R? #Rstats\"

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Answer 1

Here is an example that works for files which cannot be read in with the read.table function. This example reads a .xls file.

url <-"https://www1.toronto.ca/City_Of_Toronto/Information_Technology/Open_Data/Data_Sets/Assets/Files/fire_stns.zip"

temp <- tempfile()
temp2 <- tempfile()

download.file(url, temp)
unzip(zipfile = temp, exdir = temp2)
data <- read_xls(file.path(temp2, "fire station x_y.xls"))

unlink(c(temp, temp2))