oe_find: Get the path of .pbf and .gpkg files associated with an input...

In osmextract: Download and Import Open Street Map Data Extracts

Get the path of .pbf and .gpkg files associated with an input OSM extract

Description

This function takes a place name and returns the path of .pbf/.gpkg files associated with it.

Usage

oe_find(
  place,
  provider = "geofabrik",
  download_directory = oe_download_directory(),
  download_if_missing = FALSE,
  return_pbf = TRUE,
  return_gpkg = TRUE,
  quiet = FALSE,
  ...
)

Arguments

place	Description of the geographical area that should be matched with a .osm.pbf file. Can be either a length-1 character vector, an sf/sfc/bbox object with any CRS, or a numeric vector of coordinates with length 2. In the last case, it is assumed that the EPSG code is 4326 specified as c(LON, LAT), while you can use any CRS with sf/sfc/bbox objects. See Details and Examples in oe_match().
provider	Which provider should be used to download the data? Available providers can be browsed with oe_providers(). For oe_get() and oe_match(), if place is equal to ⁠ITS Leeds⁠, then provider is internally set equal to "test". This is just for simple examples and internal tests.
download_directory	Directory where the function looks for matches.
download_if_missing	Should we attempt to download the matched file if it cannot be found? FALSE by default.
return_pbf	Logical of length 1. If TRUE, the function returns the path of the .osm.pbf file that matches the input place.
return_gpkg	Logical of length 1. If TRUE, the function returns the path of the .gpkg file that matches the input place.
quiet	Boolean. If FALSE, the function prints informative messages. Starting from sf version 0.9.6, if quiet is equal to FALSE, then vectortranslate operations will display a progress bar.
...	Extra arguments that are passed to oe_match() and oe_get(). Please note that you cannot pass the argument download_only.

Details

The matching between the existing files (saved in the directory specified by download_directory parameter) and the input place is performed using list.files(), setting the pattern argument equal to the basename of the URL associated to the input place. For example, if you specify place = "Isle of Wight", then your input is matched (via oe_match()) with the URL of Isle of Wight. Finally, the files are selected using a pattern equal to the basename of that URL.

If there is no file in the download_directory that can be matched with the basename of the URL and download_if_missing is TRUE, then the function tries to download it (geofabrik is the default provider) and returns the path. Otherwise it stops with an error.

By default, this function returns the path of both .osm.pbf and .gpkg files associated with the input place (if any). You can exclude one of the two formats using the arguments return_pbf or return_gpkg to FALSE.

Value

A character vector of length one (or two) representing the path(s) of the .pbf/.gpkg files associated with the input place. The files are sorted in alphabetical order, which implies that if both formats are present in the download_directory, then the .gpkg file should be returned first.

Examples

# Copy the ITS file to tempdir() to make sure that the examples do not
# require internet connection. You can skip the next 4 lines (and start
# directly with oe_get_keys) when running the examples locally.
res = file.copy(
  from = system.file("its-example.osm.pbf", package = "osmextract"),
  to = file.path(tempdir(), "test_its-example.osm.pbf"),
  overwrite = TRUE
)
res = oe_get("ITS Leeds", quiet = TRUE, download_directory = tempdir())
oe_find("ITS Leeds", provider = "test", download_directory = tempdir())
oe_find(
  "ITS Leeds", provider = "test",
  download_directory = tempdir(), return_gpkg = FALSE
)

## Not run: 
oe_find("Isle of Wight", download_directory = tempdir())
oe_find("Malta", download_if_missing = TRUE, download_directory = tempdir())
oe_find(
  "Leeds",
  provider = "bbbike",
  download_if_missing = TRUE,
  download_directory = tempdir(),
  return_pbf = FALSE
)
## End(Not run)

# Remove .pbf and .gpkg files in tempdir
oe_clean(tempdir())

osmextract documentation built on April 14, 2026, 9:06 a.m.