How to download and import files in R [R Data Science Tutorial 3.0]

This video will help you to learn, how to download a file into a folder or in your R-programming environment. It also includes function that helps you to import data from your PC or MAC local storages.

# Download file from websites

download.file function: This function will help you to download any type of file from websites. The downloaded file will save in your default directory.

read.csv function with url: read.csv function mainly used to import coma separated values but using same function with a url function you can download .csv file from websites directly in your R environment.

# Import file from local storage

read.table function: This function can be used to read any type of file from local storage. The major disadvantages of this function is that it is very slow when the file become too large.

fread function: fread function comes with data.table package which is a much efficient and time saving when reading large files from your local storage

# system.time function

One can compare the importing time of files using system.time function. This will show you loading time in seconds.