how to pause an R script until a file has been downloaded?

Question

I have the following piece of code which runs a python selenium script that downloads a report

library(reticulate)
source_python("C:/Users/Gunathilakel/Desktop/Dashboard Project/Dashboard/PBK-Report-Automation-for-Dashboard-master/pbk automation.py")

I want to make sure that R waits until the earlier piece of code has downloaded a file into my downloads folder before the script executes this next piece of code

my.file.copy <- function(from, to) {
   todir <- dirname(to)
   if (!isTRUE(file.info(todir)$isdir)) dir.create(todir, recursive=TRUE)
   file.copy(from = from,  to = to,overwrite = TRUE)
 }

 my.file.copy(from = "C:/Users/Gunathilakel/Downloads/Issued and Referral Charge.csv",
                to = "C:/Users/Gunathilakel/Desktop/Dashboard Project/Dashboard/RawData/Issued and Referral Charge2020.csv")

I found this question How to make execution pause, sleep, wait for X seconds in R?

But is it possible to wait for execution until a file has been downloaded?

Change your Python script to do a synchronous download

Hong Ooi
– Hong Ooi

2020-06-10 21:30:43 +00:00
Commented Jun 10, 2020 at 21:30 — Hong Ooi
– Hong Ooi, Commented Jun 10, 2020 at 21:30
Seconding @HongOoi's comment as the best answer.

dpritch
– dpritch

2020-06-11 03:33:40 +00:00
Commented Jun 11, 2020 at 3:33 — dpritch
– dpritch, Commented Jun 11, 2020 at 3:33

Nathan123 · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-10 22:02:59Z

2

actually found a solution from this question

Wait for file to exist

library(reticulate)
source_python("C:/Users/Gunathilakel/Desktop/Dashboard Project/Dashboard/PBK-Report-Automation-for-Dashboard-master/pbk automation.py") 

while (!file.exists("C:/Users/Gunathilakel/Downloads/Issued and Referral Charge.csv")) {
  Sys.sleep(1)
}


 # Moves Downloaded CSV file of Issued_and_refused from Downloads --------
 my.file.copy <- function(from, to) {
   todir <- dirname(to)
   if (!isTRUE(file.info(todir)$isdir)) dir.create(todir, recursive=TRUE)
   file.copy(from = from,  to = to,overwrite = TRUE)
 }

 my.file.copy(from = "C:/Users/Gunathilakel/Downloads/Issued and Referral Charge.csv",
                to = "C:/Users/Gunathilakel/Desktop/Dashboard Project/Dashboard/RawData/Issued and Referral Charge2020.csv")

answered Jun 10, 2020 at 22:02

Nathan123

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4 Comments

dpritch Over a year ago

Just beware that if that file doesn't end up where you expect, then you will have an infinite loop. It might be worth adding an escape hatch, or better yet change the Python script to do a synchronous download as suggested by @HongOoi.

Nathan123 Over a year ago

@dpritch I am using selenium to download the file using a command like the following

driver.find_element(By.XPATH,'//*[@id="ctl00_ContentPlaceHolder1_rvReports_ctl09_ctl04_ctl00_Menu"]/div[7]/a').click() # This clicks on the csv file to be downloaded

can you share any resources on how to do a synchronous download inside a python script.

dpritch Over a year ago

According to this it appears that in the general case there is no way to wait until the download is completed and what you have proposed is probably the best recourse. In some cases though, you might be able to extract the target URL using Selenium, in which case you could perform the download using e.g. the requests package which would give you much greater control over the download attempt.

KKW Over a year ago

can also look for file size with for loop and sleep. If same then break loop

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