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Manage the folder where downloaded databases are kept

Source: R/database_cache.R
database_cache_dir.Rd

By default, load_database() keeps the databases it downloads in one folder per user, so each release is downloaded once per computer and shared by every project and R session that loads it.

  • database_cache_dir() gives the folder.

  • list_cached_databases() lists the databases in it, with their size and when each was last used.

  • clear_database_cache() deletes some or all of them, e.g. those not used for six months with older_than = 180.

A release of AusTraits is about 20 MB (its flattened table several times that), and each new release is usually kept beside the old ones, so delete the ones you no longer use.

The folder is, in order of preference:

  1. the traits.use.cache_dir option, if set, e.g. with options(traits.use.cache_dir = "~/data/traits") in your .Rprofile;

  2. otherwise tools::R_user_dir("traits.use", which = "cache"), which follows each operating system's convention for cache files (and the R_USER_CACHE_DIR environment variable, if set).

To keep a copy of a database with a project instead, give load_database() a path; the functions here take the same path. They only ever touch the files load_database() wrote there: the database .rds files (relational or flattened) named in its record files (10.*.json, one per doi).

Usage

database_cache_dir()

list_cached_databases(path = database_cache_dir())

clear_database_cache(
  files = NULL,
  path = database_cache_dir(),
  older_than = NULL,
  ask = interactive()
)

Arguments

path

folder to list or clear; the cache folder by default.

files

names of the database .rds files to delete, as listed by list_cached_databases().

older_than

delete the databases not used (loaded from the cache) for this many days. In a folder given as path, or where the cache cannot be written to, this is days since the file was downloaded.

ask

if TRUE, asks for confirmation before deleting anything.

Value

database_cache_dir() returns the folder's path (which may not exist yet). list_cached_databases() returns a tibble with one row per database: file, size_mb and last_used. clear_database_cache() invisibly returns the paths of the files it deleted.

Details

With neither files nor older_than, clear_database_cache() deletes every database in path, with its record file.

See also

load_database()

Examples

database_cache_dir()
#> [1] "/Users/runner/Library/Caches/org.R-project.R/R/traits.use"
list_cached_databases()
#> # A tibble: 0 × 3
#> # ℹ 3 variables: file <chr>, size_mb <dbl>, last_used <dttm>

# Delete the cached databases not used for six months, with
# clear_database_cache(older_than = 180)