Extracting Datasets from Excel Files in a Zipped Folder

the title of the post is a bit long, but that’s the problem i was facing this morning: importing datasets from files, online. i mean, it was not a “problem” (since i can always download and extract the files manually), more a challenge (i should be able to do it in r, directly). the files are located on ressources-actuarielles.net , in a zip file. those are mortality tables used in french-speaking african countries, and i guess that one problem came from special characters, such as “é” or “è”… when you open the zip file, you see a folder:

and in that folder, several files that i would like to import:

my first code was quite standard, unfortunately, it did not work

> library(xlsx)
> loc.url <- "http://ressources-a...cima.zip"
> temp <- tempfile()
> download.file(loc.url,temp)
trying url 'http://ressources-a...cima.zip'
content type 'application/x-zip' length 503786 bytes (491 kb)
opened url
downloaded 491 kb

> list.files <- unzip(temp,list=true)
> data <- read.xlsx(unz(temp,
+ list.files$name[1]),sheetindex=1)
error in path.expand(file) : invalid 'path' argument

indeed, there was a problem with the path,

> list.files$name[1]
[1] "tables de mortalit‚ cima/cima f.xlsx"

thankfully, as usual, @ 3wen came to rescue me, and suggested the following,

> sys.setlocale("lc_all", "c")
[1] "c"
> loc.url <- "http://ressources-a...cima.zip"
> td <- tempdir() 
> tf <- tempfile(tmpdir=td, fileext=".zip") 
> download.file(loc.url, tf) 
trying url 'http://ressources-a...cima.zip' content type 'application/x-zip' length 503786 bytes (491 kb) opened url 
============================================= downloaded 491 kb   

> fname <- unzip(tf, list=true)$name[1] 
> unzip(tf, files=fname, exdir=td,
+ overwrite=true) 
> fpath <- file.path(td, fname)

that was it… then @ 3wen suggested another package to read the xlsx file (that works well on my linux laptop, not on windows)

> data <- read.xls(fpath, sheet = 1)
perl: warning: setting locale failed.
perl: warning: please check that your locale settings:
    language = "fr_ca:fr",
    lc_all = (unset),
    lang = "fr_ca.utf-8"
    are supported and installed on your system.
perl: warning: falling back to the standard locale ("c").
> sys.setlocale()
[1] ""

> head(data)
  age lx..cima.f. qx..cima.f. dx..cima.f.
1   0   1000000.0     0.2849%   2848.5034
2   1    997151.5     0.0387%    385.8644
3   2    996765.6     0.0296%    295.2717
4   3    996470.4     0.0252%    251.5163
5   4    996218.8     0.0216%    214.9381
6   5    996003.9     0.0197%    195.9929

that was more subtle than expected…