getHdata: Download and Install Datasets for Hmisc, Design, and Statistical Modeling

Description

This function downloads and makes ready to use datasets from the main web site for the Hmisc and Design libraries. For R, the datasets were stored in compressed save format and getHdata makes them available by running load() after download. For S-Plus, the datasets were stored in data.dump format and are made available by running data.restore() after import. The dataset is run through the cleanup.import function to reduce multiple inheritance problems for SV4 (S-Plus 5 or later). Calling getHdata with no file argument provides a character vector of names of available datasets that are currently on the web site. For R, R's default browser can optionally be launched to view html files that were already prepared using the Hmisc command html(contents( )) or to view .txt or .html data description files when available.

Usage

getHdata(file, what = c("data", "contents", "description", "all"),
         where="http://biostat.mc.vanderbilt.edu/twiki/pub/Main/DataSets")

Arguments

file

an unquoted name of a dataset on the web site, e.g. prostate. Omit file to obtain a list of available datasets.

what

specify what="contents" to browse the contents (metadata) for the dataset rather than fetching the data themselves. Specify what="description" to browse a data description file if available. Specify what="all" t

where

URL containing the data and metadata files

Value

getHdata() without a file argument returns a character vector of dataset base names. When a dataset is downloaded, the data frame is placed in search position one and is not returned as value of getHdata.

Details

For S-Plus, Hmisc defines a function download.file that is used by getHdata. This is a stripped-down version of the Rdownload.file function that uses the system wget executable for fetching files from the Internet. For Unix and Linux systems, wget will be pre-installed usually. For windows S-Plus systems, get wget from ftp://sunsite.dk/projects/wget/windows. Once you unzip the file from there, move wget.exe to the same Windows directory that contains ftp.exe.

Examples

Run this code

getHdata()          # download list of available datasets
getHdata(prostate)  # downloads, load( ) or data.restore( )
                    # runs cleanup.import for S-Plus 6
getHdata(valung, "contents")   # open browser (options(browser="whatever"))
                    # after downloading valung.html
                    # (result of html(contents()))
getHdata(support, "all")  # download and open one browser window
datadensity(support)
attach(support)     # make individual variables available
getHdata(plasma,  "all")  # download and open two browser windows
                          # (description file is available for plasma)

Run the code above in your browser using DataLab

Last chance! 50% off unlimited learning