[R] FTP download from ftp.sec.gov

[Bos, Roger]

All,

I have managed to download files from web sites and ftp sites using R,
so just for fun I tried to do so from the SEC's ftp site using the
following code:

ftp <- "ftp://anonymous:test@ftp.sec.gov/edgar/full-index/company.idx"
download.file(url=ftp, destfile="test.txt")

And it does not work.  R says it cannot open the URL. If I paste the ftp
part into IE it works fine.  Its not critical, but I would be interested
if anything figures out how to make it work.  (I know R is probably not
the best language for FTP download and text parsing, but that's another
topic).

Thanks, Roger


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