[R-pkg-devel] Best practices for distributing large data files

[Greg Minshall]

Rafael,

> Another option that has been suggested to me is not to use an
> accessory data package at all, but instead download and parse the
> required data on demand from the corresponding internet resources,
> store them locally, and then have future sessions load them from the
> local copies, therefore not requiring download and parsing in every R
> session, but only once (or possibly only once in a while, if the
> associated resource is updated). However, this would be leaving files
> of relatively large size (several 10s of MB) scattered in the local
> environment of users (instead of having them all centralized in the
> accessory data package). Is this option acceptable as well?

i've done this for caching some world bank data.  for my simple use,
this works well.  but, i don't really have any systematic way of
"invalidating" the cache, providing the user with any control over this,
etc., and i consider that a problem.

cheers, Greg