datadir_bc {rasterbc}

Set local directory for storage of raster data files

Description

All files downloaded/created by the rasterbc package are written to the directory assigned by this function. The path to this directory is stored in the global options list for R under 'rasterbc.data.dir'. To set this path, call datadir_bc and pass the path as argument data.dir. To check the current setting, call datadir_bc() without arguments.

Usage

datadir_bc(data.dir = NULL, quiet = FALSE)

Arguments

data.dir

character string, the absolute path to the desired storage directory

quiet

logical indicating to skip confirmation prompt and warnings about existing directories

Details

If data.dir=NA, the data storage directory is set to the a subdirectory of base::tempdir(), a per-session temporary directory (cleared after each R session). This happens automatically if opendata_bc or getdata_bc are called before datadir_bc, ensuring that rasterbc won't unexpectedly overwrite things or leave garbage in the user's file system.

However, users are strongly encouraged to set the data directory manually to a non-temporary location. This allows copies of downloaded data to persist between sessions, so that rasterbc::opendata_bc can load the local copies in future R sessions. This is both much faster than downloading mapsheets repeatedly, and it reduces the strain on FRDR's data hosting service.

The directory data.dir will be created if it doesn't already exist.

Value

character string, the absolute path to the data storage directory

Examples

# call without arguments to get the current directory (or a prompt to set it, if unset)
datadir_bc()
# call with argument NA to set a default location
datadir_bc(NA, quiet=TRUE)
datadir_bc()