R: reading a binary file that is zipped

Question

I am trying to parse some online weather data with R. The data is a binary file that has been gzipped. An example file is:

ftp://ftp.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/precip/C

Answer 1

Try this:

R> remfname <- "ftp://ftp.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/precip/CPC_UNI_PRCP/GAUGE_GLB/V1.0/2005/PRCP_CU_GAUGE_V1.0GLB_0.50deg.lnx.20050101.gz"
R> locfname <- "/tmp/data.gz"
R> download.file(remfname, locfname)
trying URL 'ftp://ftp.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/precip/CPC_UNI_PRCP/GAUGE_GLB/V1.0/2005/PRCP_CU_GAUGE_V1.0GLB_0.50deg.lnx.20050101.gz'
ftp data connection made, file length 179058 bytes
opened URL
==================================================
downloaded 174 Kb

R> con <- gzcon(file(locfname, "rb"))
R> myPoints <- readBin(con, real(), n=1e6, size = 4, endian = "little")
R> close(con)
R> str(myPoints)
 num [1:518400] 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...
R>