downloadECLS_K {EdSurvey}

Download and Unzip ECLS_K Files

Description

Uses an Internet connection to download ECLS_K data. Data come from nces.ed.gov zip files. This function works for 1998 and 2011 data.

Usage

downloadECLS_K(root, years = c(1998, 2011), cache = FALSE, verbose = TRUE)

Arguments

root

a character string indicating the directory where the ECLS_K data should be stored. Files are placed in a subdirectory named ECLS_K/[year].

years

an integer vector of the assessment years to download. Valid years are 1998 and 2011.

cache

a logical value set to process and cache the text (.txt) version of files. This takes a very long time but saves time for future uses of the data. Default value is FALSE.

verbose

a logical value to either print or suppress status message output. The default value is TRUE.

Details

Beginning for the ECLS_K 2011 Study Grade 5 data files, the ChildK5p.zip source data file is a DEFLATE64 compressed zip file. This means that the user must manually extract the contained childK5p.dat file using an external zip program capable of handling DEFLATE64 zip format. As existing R functions are unable to handle this zip format natively.

Author(s)

Tom Fink

See Also

readECLS_K1998 and readECLS_K2011

Examples

## Not run: 
# root argument will vary by operating system conventions
downloadECLS_K(years=c(1998, 2011), root = "~/")

# cache=TRUE will download then process the datafiles
downloadECLS_K(years=c(1998, 2011), root = "~/", cache = TRUE)

# set verbose=FALSE for silent output
# if year not specified, download all years
downloadECLS_K(root="~/", verbose = FALSE)

## End(Not run)