save format and
getHdata makes them
available by running
load() after download. For S-Plus, the
datasets were stored in
data.dump format and are made available
by running
data.restore() after import. The dataset is run through the
cleanup.import
function to reduce multiple inheritance problems
for SV4 (S-Plus 5 or later). Calling
getHdata with no
file
argument provides a character vector of names of available
datasets that are currently on the web site. For R, R's default browser
can optionally be launched to view
html files that were already
prepared using the Hmisc command
html(contents( )) or to view
.txt
or
.html data description files when available.
getHdata(file, what = c("data", "contents", "description", "all"),
where="http://biostat.mc.vanderbilt.edu/twiki/pub/Main/DataSets")
prostate. Omit
file to obtain a list of
available datasets.
what="contents" to browse the contents
(metadata) for the dataset rather than fetching the data
themselves. Specify
what="description" to browse a data
description file if available. Specify
what="all" to
retrieve the data and see the metadata and description.
For S-Plus, Hmisc defines a function
download.file that is used
by
getHdata. This is a stripped-down version of the R
download.file
function that uses the system
wget
executable for fetching files from the Internet. For Unix and Linux
systems,
wget will be pre-installed usually. For windows
S-Plus systems, get
wget from
ftp://sunsite.dk/projects/wget/windows. Once you unzip the file
from there, move
wget.exe to the same Windows directory that
contains
ftp.exe.
getHdata() without a
file argument returns a character
vector of dataset base names. When a dataset is downloaded, the data
frame is placed in search position one and is not returned as value of
getHdata
.
Frank Harrell
## Not run:
getHdata() # download list of available datasets
getHdata(prostate) # downloads, load( ) or data.restore( )
# runs cleanup.import for S-Plus 6
getHdata(valung, "contents") # open browser (options(browser="whatever"))
# after downloading valung.html
# (result of html(contents()))
getHdata(support, "all") # download and open one browser window
datadensity(support)
attach(support) # make individual variables available
getHdata(plasma, "all") # download and open two browser windows
# (description file is available for plasma)
## End(Not run)