Dear R-help,

I have just been informed that I must not rewrite the 'https' as 'http' as
some web pages may not download (I think I just got lucky on the ones I've
tried thus far). Therefore I would ask if some kind individual could let me
know where I can post questions about the RCurl package (Omegahat
Repository), because I honestly can't find the mailing list for it, and ask
forgiveness for my earlier post  :-)

Many thanks,
Tony

2008/10/1 Tony Breyal <tony.breyal@googlemail.com>

> Dear R-Help,
>
> From reading the help file, it is my understanding the the download.file()
> function does not support HTTPS connections. So therefore, understandably,
> the follow produces an error:
>
> ### R Code
> > url <- "https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-help/2008-October/thread.html"
> > destfile <- "//PFO-SBS001/Redirected/tonyb/Desktop/R_web_test/tmp.txt"
> > download.file(url, destfile)
> Error in download.file(url, destfile) : unsupported URL scheme
>
> My question is: What about if i remove the 's' from the 'https' url? The
> download.file() function seems to now work fine (please see below). Did i
> just get lucky with the url I used, or can I in general simply rewrite
> 'https' as 'http'. My long term goal is to download hundreds of web pages
> and then somehow remove all of the html tags so that only the web page text
> remains. No private information is being sent or received for this task (no
> passwords etc are used).
>
> ### R Code
> > url <- "http://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-help/2008-October/thread.html"
> > destfile <- "//PFO-SBS001/Redirected/tonyb/Desktop/R_web_test/tmp.txt"
> > download.file(url, destfile)
> trying URL 'http://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-help/2008-October/thread.html'
> Content type 'text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1' length 13767 bytes (13 Kb)
> opened URL
> downloaded 13 Kb
>
> A quick forum search shows that a package called RCurl (Omegahat
> Repository) does support HTTPS connections, but i got an error when using
> that and have no idea where the omegahat mailing list is, which is why i'd
> like to know about removing the 's' in 'https'. If it turns out there is a
> good reason not to remove the 's', then i will repost on. God i hope this
> post makes sense lol.
>
> Many thanks for your valuable time,
> Tony Breyal
>
> Ps. This is my first posting, so please be kind!  :-)
> PPs. Sorry this post was so long.
> PPPs. For anyone interested, this is what happens when using RCurl:
>
> ### R Code
> > library(RCurl)
> > txt = getURL("
> https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-help/2008-October/thread.html")
> Error in curlPerform(curl = curl, .opts = opts, .encoding = .encoding) :
>   SSL certificate problem, verify that the CA cert is OK. Details:
> error:14090086:SSL routines:SSL3_GET_SERVER_CERTIFICATE:certificate verify
> failed
>
> OS: Windows Vista Ultimate
> R version: 2.7.2 (2008-08-25)
>

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