whep_read_file: Download, cache and read files

In whep: Processing Agro-Environmental Data

Download, cache and read files

Description

Used to fetch input files that are needed for the package's functions and that were built in external sources and are too large to include directly. This is a public function for transparency purposes, so that users can inspect the original inputs of this package that were not directly processed here.

If the requested file doesn't exist locally, it is downloaded from a public link and cached before reading it. This is all implemented using the pins package. It supports multiple file formats and file versioning.

Usage

whep_read_file(file_alias, type = "parquet", version = NULL)

Arguments

file_alias	Internal name of the requested file. You can find the possible values in the alias column of the whep_inputs dataset.
type	The extension of the file that must be read. Possible values: parquet: This is the default value for code efficiency reasons. csv: Mainly available for those who want a more human-readable option. If the parquet version is available, this is useless because this function already returns the dataset in an R object, so the origin is irrelevant, and parquet is read faster. Saving each file in both formats is for transparency and accessibility purposes, e.g., having to share the data with non-programmers who can easily import a CSV into a spreadsheet. You will most likely never have to set this option manually unless for some reason a file could not be supplied in e.g. parquet format but was in another one.
version	The version of the file that must be read. Possible values: NULL: This is the default value. A frozen version is chosen to make the code reproducible. Each release will have its own frozen versions. The version is the string that can be found in whep_inputs in the version column. "latest": This overrides the frozen version and instead fetches the latest one that is available. This might or might not match the frozen version. Other: A specific version can also be used. For more details read the version column information from whep_inputs.

Value

A tibble with the dataset. Some information about each dataset can be found in the code where it's used as input for further processing.

Examples

whep_read_file("read_example")
whep_read_file("read_example", type = "parquet", version = "latest")
whep_read_file(
  "read_example",
  type = "csv",
  version = "20250721T152646Z-ce61b"
)

whep documentation built on Nov. 5, 2025, 7:18 p.m.