% File src/library/base/man/connections.Rd
% Part of the R package, https://www.R-project.org
% Copyright 1995-2025 R Core Team
% Distributed under GPL 2 or later

\name{connections}
\title{Functions to Manipulate Connections (Files, URLs, ...)}
\alias{connections}
\alias{connection}
\alias{file}
\alias{clipboard}
\alias{pipe}
\alias{fifo}
\alias{gzfile}
\alias{unz}
\alias{bzfile}
\alias{xzfile}
\alias{zstdfile}
\alias{url}
\alias{socketConnection}
\alias{socketAccept}
\alias{serverSocket}
\alias{socketTimeout}
\alias{open}
\alias{open.connection}
\alias{isOpen}
\alias{isIncomplete}
\alias{close}
\alias{close.connection}
\alias{flush}
\alias{flush.connection}
\alias{print.connection}
\alias{summary.connection}
\concept{encoding}
\concept{compression}
\concept{decompression}
\concept{\I{zip}}
\concept{\I{gzip}}
\concept{\I{bzip2}}
\concept{\I{lzma}}
\concept{\I{zstd}}
\description{
  Functions to create, open and close connections, i.e.,
  \dQuote{generalized files}, such as possibly compressed files, URLs,
  pipes, etc.
}
\usage{
file(description = "", open = "", blocking = TRUE,
     encoding = getOption("encoding"), raw = FALSE,
     method = getOption("url.method", "default"))

url(description, open = "", blocking = TRUE,
    encoding = getOption("encoding"),
    method = getOption("url.method", "default"),
    headers = NULL)

gzfile(description, open = "", encoding = getOption("encoding"),
       compression = 6)

bzfile(description, open = "", encoding = getOption("encoding"),
       compression = 9)

xzfile(description, open = "", encoding = getOption("encoding"),
       compression = 6)

zstdfile(description, open = "", encoding = getOption("encoding"),
       compression = 9)

unz(description, filename, open = "", encoding = getOption("encoding"))

pipe(description, open = "", encoding = getOption("encoding"))

fifo(description, open = "", blocking = FALSE,
     encoding = getOption("encoding"))

socketConnection(host = "localhost", port, server = FALSE,
                 blocking = FALSE, open = "a+",
                 encoding = getOption("encoding"),
                 timeout = getOption("timeout"),
                 options = getOption("socketOptions"))

serverSocket(port)

socketAccept(socket, blocking = FALSE, open = "a+",
             encoding = getOption("encoding"),
             timeout = getOption("timeout"),
             options = getOption("socketOptions"))

open(con, \dots)
\method{open}{connection}(con, open = "r", blocking = TRUE, \dots)

close(con, \dots)
\method{close}{connection}(con, type = "rw", \dots)

flush(con)

isOpen(con, rw = "")
isIncomplete(con)

socketTimeout(socket, timeout = -1)
}
\arguments{
  \item{description}{character string.  A description of the connection:
    see \sQuote{Details}.}
  \item{open}{character string.  A description of how to open the connection
    (if it should be opened initially).  See section \sQuote{Modes} for
    possible values.}
  \item{blocking}{logical.  See the \sQuote{Blocking} section.}
  \item{encoding}{the name of the encoding to be assumed.  See the
    \sQuote{Encoding} section.}
  \item{raw}{logical.  If true, a \sQuote{raw} interface is used which
    will be more suitable for arguments which are not regular files,
    e.g.\sspace{}character devices.  This suppresses the check for a compressed
    file when opening for text-mode reading, and asserts that the
    \sQuote{file} may not be seekable.}
  \item{method}{character string, partially matched to
    \code{c("default", "internal", "wininet", "libcurl")}:
    see \sQuote{Details}.}
%% FIXME:  Consider  "auto", as in download.file()
  \item{headers}{named character vector of HTTP headers to use in HTTP
    requests.  It is ignored for non-HTTP URLs.  The \code{User-Agent}
    header, coming from the \code{HTTPUserAgent} option (see
    \code{\link{options}}) is used as the first header, automatically.}
  \item{compression}{integer in 0--9 (1--19 for \code{zstdfile}).  The
    amount of compression to be applied when writing, from minimal to
    maximal available.  For \code{xzfile} and \code{zstdfile} can also
    be negative: see the \sQuote{Compression} section.}
  \item{timeout}{numeric: the timeout (in seconds) to be used for this
    connection.  Beware that some OSes may treat very large values as
    zero: however the POSIX standard requires values up to 31 days to be
    supported.}
  \item{options}{optional character vector with options. Currently only
    \code{"no-delay"} is supported on TCP sockets.}
  \item{filename}{a filename within a zip file.}
  \item{host}{character string.  Host name for the port.}
  \item{port}{integer.  The TCP port number.}
  \item{server}{logical.  Should the socket be a client or a server?}
  \item{socket}{a server socket listening for connections.}
  \item{con}{a connection.}
  \item{type}{character string.  Currently ignored.}
  \item{rw}{character string.  Empty or \code{"read"} or \code{"write"},
    partial matches allowed.}
  \item{\dots}{arguments passed to or from other methods.}
}
\details{
  The first eleven functions create connections.  By default the
  connection is not opened (except for a socket connection created by
  \code{socketConnection} or \code{socketAccept} and for server socket
  connection created by \code{serverSocket}), but may
  be opened by setting a non-empty value of argument \code{open}.

  For \code{file} the description is a path to the file to be opened
  (when \link{tilde expansion} is done) or a complete URL (when it is
  the same as calling \code{url}), or \code{""} (the default) or
  \code{"clipboard"} (see the \sQuote{Clipboard} section).  Use
  \code{"stdin"} to refer to the C-level \sQuote{standard input} of the
  process (which need not be connected to anything in a console or
  embedded version of \R, and is not in \code{RGui} on Windows).  See
  also \code{\link{stdin}()} for the subtly different R-level concept of
  \code{stdin}. See \code{\link{nullfile}()} for a platform-independent
  way to get filename of the null device.

  For \code{url} the description is a complete URL including scheme
  (such as \samp{http://}, \samp{https://}, \samp{ftp://} or
  \samp{file://}).  Method \code{"internal"} is that available since
  connections were introduced but now mainly defunct.  Method
  \code{"wininet"} is only available on Windows (it uses the \I{WinINet}
  functions of that OS) and method \code{"libcurl"} (using the library
  of that name: \url{https://curl.se/libcurl/}) is nowadays required but
  was optional on Windows before \R 4.2.0.  Method \code{"default"}
  currently uses method \code{"internal"} for \samp{file://} URLs and
  \code{"libcurl"} for all others.  Which methods support which schemes
  has varied by \R version -- currently \code{"internal"} supports only
  \samp{file://}; \code{"wininet"} supports \samp{file://},
  \samp{http://} and \samp{https://}.  Proxies can be specified: see
  \code{\link{download.file}}.

  For \code{gzfile} the description is the path to a file compressed by
  \command{gzip}: it can also open for reading uncompressed files and
  those compressed by \command{bzip2}, \command{xz}, \command{lzma} or
  (if \R{} was built to support it) \command{zstd}.

  For \code{bzfile} the description is the path to a file compressed by
  \command{bzip2}.

  For \code{xzfile} the description is the path to a file compressed by
  \command{xz} (\url{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xz}) or (for reading
  only) \command{lzma} (\url{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LZMA}).

  For \code{zstdfile} the description is the path to a file compressed by
  \command{zstd} (\url{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zstd}): support is
  optional when \R is built.

  \code{unz} reads (only) single files within zip files, in binary mode.
  The description is the full path to the zip file, with \file{.zip}
  extension if required.

  For \code{pipe} the description is the command line to be piped to or
  from.  This is run in a shell, on Windows that specified by the
  \env{COMSPEC} environment variable.

  For \code{fifo} the description is the path of the \I{fifo}.  (Support for
  \code{fifo} connections is optional but they are available on most
  Unix platforms and on Windows.)

  The intention is that \code{file} and \code{gzfile} can be used
  generally for text input (from files, \samp{http://} and
  \samp{https://} URLs) and binary input respectively.

  \code{open}, \code{close} and \code{seek} are generic functions: the
  following applies to the methods relevant to connections.

  \code{open} opens a connection.  In general functions using
  connections will open them if they are not open, but then close them
  again, so to leave a connection open call \code{open} explicitly.

  \code{close} closes and destroys a connection.  This will happen
  automatically in due course (with a warning) if there is no longer an
  \R object referring to the connection.

  \code{flush} flushes the output stream of a connection open for
  write/append (where implemented, currently for file and clipboard
  connections, \code{\link{stdout}} and \code{\link{stderr}}).

  If for a \code{file} or (on most platforms) a \code{fifo} connection
  the description is \code{""}, the file/\I{fifo} is immediately opened (in
  \code{"w+"} mode unless \code{open = "w+b"} is specified) and unlinked
  from the file system.  This provides a temporary file/\I{fifo} to write to
  and then read from.

  \code{socketConnection(server=TRUE)} creates a new temporary server socket
  listening on the given port.  As soon as a new socket connection is
  accepted on that port, the server socket is automatically closed. 
  \code{serverSocket} creates a listening server socket which can be used
  for accepting multiple socket connections by \code{socketAccept}.  To stop
  listening for new connections, a server socket needs to be closed
  explicitly by \code{close}.

  \code{socketConnection} and \code{socketAccept} support setting of
  socket-specific options. Currently only \code{"no-delay"} is
  implemented which enables the \code{TCP_NODELAY} socket option, causing
  the socket to flush send buffers immediately (instead of waiting to
  collect all output before sending). This option is useful for
  protocols that need fast request/response turn-around times.

  \code{socketTimeout} sets connection timeout of a socket connection.  A
  negative \code{timeout} can be given to query the old value.
}

\section{URLs}{
  \code{url} and \code{file} support URL schemes \samp{file://},
  \samp{http://}, \samp{https://} and \samp{ftp://}.

  \code{method = "libcurl"} allows more schemes: exactly which schemes
  is platform-dependent (see \code{\link{libcurlVersion}}), but all
  platforms will support \samp{https://} and most platforms will support
  \samp{ftps://}.

  Support for the \samp{ftp://} scheme by the \code{"internal"} method was
  deprecated in \R 4.1.1 and removed in \R 4.2.0.

  Most methods do not percent-encode special characters such as spaces
  in \samp{http://} URLs (see \code{\link{URLencode}}), but it seems the
  \code{"wininet"} method does.

  A note on \samp{file://} URLs (which are handled by the same internal
  code irrespective of argument \code{method}).  The most general form
  (from RFC1738) is \samp{file://host/path/to/file}, but \R only accepts
  the form with an empty \code{host} field referring to the local
  machine.

  On a Unix-alike, this is then \samp{file:///path/to/file}, where
  \samp{path/to/file} is relative to \file{/}.  So although the third
  slash is strictly part of the specification not part of the path, this
  can be regarded as a way to specify the file \file{/path/to/file}.  It
  is not possible to specify a relative path using a file URL.

  In this form the path is relative to the root of the filesystem, not a
  Windows concept.  The standard form on Windows is
  \samp{file:///d:/R/repos}: for compatibility with earlier versions of
  \R and Unix versions, any other form is parsed as \R as \samp{file://}
  plus \code{path_to_file}.  Also, backslashes are accepted within the
  path even though RFC1738 does not allow them.

  No attempt is made to decode a percent-encoded \samp{file:} URL: call
  \code{\link{URLdecode}} if necessary.

  All the methods attempt to follow redirected HTTP and \abbr{HTTPS} URLs.

  Server-side cached data is always accepted.

  Function \code{\link{download.file}} and several contributed packages
  provide more comprehensive facilities to download from URLs.
}

\value{
  \code{file}, \code{pipe}, \code{fifo}, \code{url}, \code{gzfile},
  \code{bzfile}, \code{xzfile}, \code{zstdfile}, \code{unz},
  \code{socketConnection}, \code{socketAccept} and \code{serverSocket}
  return a connection object which inherits from class
  \code{"connection"} and has a first more specific class.

  \code{open} and \code{flush} return \code{NULL}, invisibly.

  \code{close} returns either \code{NULL} or an integer status,
  invisibly. The status is from when the connection was last closed and
  is available only for some types of connections (e.g., pipes, files and
  \I{fifo}s): typically zero values indicate success.  Negative values will
  result in a warning; if writing, these may indicate write failures and should
  not be ignored. Connections should be closed explicitly when finished
  with to avoid wasting resources and to reduce the risk that some buffered
  data in output connections would be lost (see \code{\link{on.exit}()} for
  how to run code also in case of error).

  \code{isOpen} returns a logical value, whether the connection is
  currently open.

  \code{isIncomplete} returns a logical value, whether the last read attempt
  from a non-blocking connection provided no data (currently no data from a
  socket or an unterminated line in \code{\link{readLines}}), or for an
  output text connection whether there is unflushed output. See example
  below.

  \code{socketTimeout} returns the old timeout value of a socket connection. 
}

\section{Modes}{
  Possible values for the argument \code{open} are
  \describe{
    \item{\code{"r"} or \code{"rt"}}{Open for reading in text mode.}
    \item{\code{"w"} or \code{"wt"}}{Open for writing in text mode.}
    \item{\code{"a"} or \code{"at"}}{Open for appending in text mode.}
    \item{\code{"rb"}}{Open for reading in binary mode.}
    \item{\code{"wb"}}{Open for writing in binary mode.}
    \item{\code{"ab"}}{Open for appending in binary mode.}
    \item{\code{"r+"}, \code{"r+b"}}{Open for reading and writing.}
    \item{\code{"w+"}, \code{"w+b"}}{Open for reading and writing,
      truncating file initially.}
    \item{\code{"a+"}, \code{"a+b"}}{Open for reading and appending.}
  }
  Not all modes are applicable to all connections: for example URLs can
  only be opened for reading.  Only file and socket connections can be
  opened for both reading and writing.  An unsupported mode is usually
  silently substituted.

  If a file or \I{fifo} is created on a Unix-alike, its permissions will be
  the maximal allowed by the current setting of \code{umask} (see
  \code{\link{Sys.umask}}).

  For many connections there is little or no difference between text and
  binary modes.  For file-like connections on Windows, translation of
  line endings (between \abbr{LF} and  \abbr{CRLF}) is done in text mode only (but text
  read operations on connections such as \code{\link{readLines}},
  \code{\link{scan}} and \code{\link{source}} work for any form of line
  ending).  Various \R operations are possible in only one of the modes:
  for example \code{\link{pushBack}} is text-oriented and is only
  allowed on connections open for reading in text mode, and binary
  operations such as \code{\link{readBin}}, \code{\link{load}} and
  \code{\link{save}} can only be done on binary-mode connections.

  The mode of a connection is determined when actually opened, which is
  deferred if \code{open = ""} is given (the default for all but socket
  connections).  An explicit call to \code{open} can specify the mode,
  but otherwise the mode will be \code{"r"}.  (\code{gzfile},
  \code{bzfile}, \code{xzfile} and \code{zstdfile} connections are exceptions, as the
  compressed file always has to be opened in binary mode and no
  conversion of line-endings is done even on Windows, so the default
  mode is interpreted as \code{"rb"}.)  Most operations that need write
  access or text-only or binary-only mode will override the default mode
  of a non-yet-open connection.

  Append modes need to be considered carefully for compressed-file
  connections.  They do \strong{not} produce a single compressed stream
  on the file, but rather append a new compressed stream to the file.
  Readers may or may not read beyond end of the first stream: currently
  \R does so for \code{gzfile}, \code{bzfile}, \code{xzfile} and
  \code{zstdfile} connections.
}

\section{Compression}{
  \R supports \command{gzip}, \command{bzip2}, \command{zstd} and
  \command{xz} compression (also read-only support for its precursor,
  \code{lzma} compression).

  For reading, the type of compression (if any) can be determined from
  the first few bytes of the file.  Thus for \code{file(raw = FALSE)}
  connections, if \code{open} is \code{""}, \code{"r"} or \code{"rt"}
  the connection can read any of the compressed file types as well as
  uncompressed files.  (Using \code{"rb"} will allow compressed files to
  be read byte-by-byte.)  Similarly, \code{gzfile} connections can read
  any of the forms of compression and uncompressed files in any read
  mode.

  (The type of compression is determined when the connection is created
  if \code{open} is unspecified and a file of that name exists.  If the
  intention is to open the connection to write a file with a
  \emph{different} form of compression under that name, specify
  \code{open = "w"} when the connection is created or
  \code{\link{unlink}} the file before creating the connection.)

  For write-mode connections, \code{compress} specifies how hard the
  compressor works to minimize the file size, and higher values need
  more CPU time and more working memory (up to ca 800Mb for
  \code{xzfile(compress = 9)}).  For \code{xzfile} negative values of
  \code{compress} correspond to adding the \command{xz} argument
  \option{-e}: this takes more time (double?) to compress but may
  achieve (slightly) better compression.  The default (\code{6}) has
  good compression and modest (100Mb memory) usage: but if you are using
  \code{xz} compression you are probably looking for high compression.

  For \code{zstd} negative numbers correspond to the \option{--fast=}
  compression levels which are faster but yield slightly worse
  compression.

  Choosing the type of compression involves tradeoffs: \command{gzip},
  \command{bzip2} and \command{xz} are successively less widely supported,
  need more resources for both compression and decompression, and
  achieve more compression (although individual files may buck the
  general trend).  Typical experience is that \code{bzip2} compression
  is 15\% better on text files than \code{gzip} compression, and
  \code{xz} with maximal compression 30\% better.  The experience with
  \R \code{\link{save}} files is similar, but on some large \file{.rda}
  files \code{xz} compression is much better than the other two.  With
  current computers decompression times even with \code{compress = 9}
  are typically modest and reading compressed files is usually faster
  than uncompressed ones because of the reduction in disc activity.

  The \command{zstd} compression support is currently optional and
  will be only included if the underlying library is present at build
  time. All related functions will return an error if the support is
  not present. It typically offers slightly worse compression than
  \code{xz}, but is orders of magnitude faster to compress.
}

\section{Encoding}{
  The encoding of the input/output stream of a connection can be
  specified by name in the same way as it would be given to
  \code{\link{iconv}}: see that help page for how to find out what
  encoding names are recognized on your platform.  Additionally,
  \code{""} and \code{"native.enc"} both mean the \sQuote{native}
  encoding, that is the internal encoding of the current locale and
  hence no translation is done.

  When writing to a text connection, the connections code always assumes its
  input is in native encoding, so e.g.  \code{\link{writeLines}} has to
  convert text to native encoding.  The native encoding is UTF-8 on most
  systems (since R 4.2 also on recent Windows) and can represent all
  characters.  \code{\link{writeLines}} does not do the conversion when
  \code{useBytes=TRUE} (for expert use only, only useful on systems with native
  encoding other than UTF-8), but the connections code still behaves as if
  the text was in native encoding, so any attempt to convert encoding
  (\code{encoding} argument other than \code{""} and \code{"native.enc"}) in
  connections will produce incorrect results.

  When reading from a text connection, the connections code re-encodes the
  input to native encoding (from the encoding given by the \code{encoding}
  argument).  On systems where UTF-8 is not the native encoding, one can
  read text not representable in the native encoding using
  \code{\link{readLines}} and \code{\link{scan}} by providing them with an
  unopened connection that has been created with the \code{encoding}
  argument specifying the input encoding.  \code{\link{readLines}} and
  \code{\link{scan}} would then instruct the connections code to convert the
  text to UTF-8 (instead of native encoding) and they will return it marked
  (aka declared, see \code{\link{Encoding}})
  as \code{"UTF-8"}.  Finally and for expert use only, one may disable
  re-encoding of input by specifying \code{""} or \code{"native.enc"} as
  \code{encoding} for the connection, but then mark the text as being
  \code{"UTF-8"} or \code{"latin1"} via the \code{encoding} argument
  of \code{\link{readLines}} and \code{\link{scan}}.

  Re-encoding only works for connections in text mode: reading from a
  connection with re-encoding specified in binary mode will read the
  stream of bytes, but mixing text and binary mode reads (e.g., mixing
  calls to \code{\link{readLines}} and \code{\link{readChar}}) is likely
  to lead to incorrect results.

  The encodings \code{"UCS-2LE"} and \code{"UTF-16LE"} are treated
  specially, as they are appropriate values for Windows \sQuote{Unicode}
  text files.  If the first two bytes are the Byte Order Mark
  \code{0xFEFF} then these are removed as some implementations of
  \code{\link{iconv}} do not accept \abbr{BOM}s.  Note that whereas most
  implementations will handle \abbr{BOM}s using encoding \code{"UCS-2"} and
  choose the appropriate byte order, some (including earlier versions of
  \code{glibc}) will not.  There is a subtle distinction between
  \code{"UTF-16"} and \code{"UCS-2"} (see
  \url{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTF-16}): the use of characters in
  the \sQuote{Supplementary Planes} which need surrogate pairs is very
  rare so \code{"UCS-2LE"} is an appropriate first choice (as it is more
  widely implemented).

  The encoding \code{"UTF-8-BOM"} is accepted for reading and will
  remove a Byte Order Mark if present (which it often is for files and
  webpages generated by Microsoft applications).  If a \abbr{BOM} is required
  (it is not recommended) when writing it should be written explicitly,
  e.g.\sspace{}by \code{writeChar("\ufeff", con, eos = NULL)} or
  \code{writeBin(as.raw(c(0xef, 0xbb, 0xbf)), binary_con)}

  Encoding names \code{"utf8"}, \code{"mac"} and \code{"macroman"} are
  not portable, and not supported on all current \R platforms.
  \code{"UTF-8"} is portable and \code{"macintosh"} is the official (and
  most widely supported) name for \sQuote{Mac Roman}.  (\R maps
  \code{"utf8"} to \code{"UTF-8"} internally.)

  Requesting a conversion that is not supported is an error, reported
  when the connection is opened.  Exactly what happens when the
  requested translation cannot be done for invalid input is in general
  undocumented.  On output the result is likely to be that up to the
  error, with a warning.  On input, it will most likely be all or some
  of the input up to the error.

  It may be possible to deduce the current native encoding from
  \code{\link{Sys.getlocale}("LC_CTYPE")}, but not all OSes record it.
}

\section{Blocking}{
  Whether or not the connection blocks can be specified for file, url
  (default yes), \I{fifo} and socket connections (default not).

  In blocking mode, functions using the connection do not return to the
  \R evaluator until the read/write is complete.  In non-blocking mode,
  operations return as soon as possible, so on input they will return
  with whatever input is available (possibly none) and for output they
  will return whether or not the write succeeded.

  The function \code{\link{readLines}} behaves differently in respect of
  incomplete last lines in the two modes: see its help page.

  Even when a connection is in blocking mode, attempts are made to
  ensure that it does not block the event loop and hence the operation
  of GUI parts of \R.  These do not always succeed, and the whole \R
  process will be blocked during a \abbr{DNS} lookup on Unix, for example.

  Most blocking operations on HTTP/FTP URLs and on sockets are subject to the
  timeout set by \code{options("timeout")}.  Note that this is a timeout
  for no response, not for the whole operation.  The timeout is set at
  the time the connection is opened (more precisely, when the last
  connection of that type -- \samp{http:}, \samp{ftp:} or socket -- was
  opened).
}

\section{\I{Fifo}s}{
  \I{Fifo}s default to non-blocking.  That follows S version 4 and is
  probably most natural, but it does have some implications.  In
  particular, opening a non-blocking \I{fifo} connection for writing (only)
  will fail unless some other process is reading on the \I{fifo}.

  Opening a \I{fifo} for both reading and writing (in any mode: one can only
  append to \I{fifo}s) connects both sides of the \I{fifo} to the \R process,
  and provides an similar facility to \code{file()}.
}

\section{Clipboard}{
  \code{file} can be used with \code{description = "clipboard"}
#ifdef windows
  in modes \code{"r"} and \code{"w"} only.
#endif
#ifdef unix
  in mode \code{"r"} only.  This reads the X11 primary selection (see
  \url{https://specifications.freedesktop.org/clipboard-spec/latest}),
  which can also be specified as \code{"X11_primary"} and the secondary
  selection as \code{"X11_secondary"}.  On most systems the clipboard
  selection (that used by \sQuote{Copy} from an \sQuote{Edit} menu) can
  be specified as \code{"X11_clipboard"}.
#endif

  When a clipboard is opened for reading, the contents are immediately
  copied to internal storage in the connection.

#ifdef windows
  When writing to the clipboard, the output is copied to the clipboard
  only when the connection is closed or flushed.  There is a 64Kb limit
  on the text to be written to the clipboard.  This can be raised by
  using e.g.\sspace{}\code{file("clipboard-128")} to give 128Kb.

  The Windows clipboard is always accessed in Unicode wide characters
  and the \code{encoding} argument is ignored (with a warning).
#endif
#ifdef unix
  Unix users wishing to \emph{write} to one of the X11 selections may be
  able to do so via \command{xclip}
  (\url{https://github.com/astrand/xclip}) or \command{xsel}
  (\url{https://www.vergenet.net/~conrad/software/xsel/}), for example by
  \code{pipe("xclip -i", "w")} for the primary selection.

  macOS users can use \code{pipe("pbpaste")} and
  \code{pipe("pbcopy", "w")} to read from and write to that system's
  clipboard.
#endif
}
\section{File paths}{
  In most cases these are translated to the native encoding.

  The exceptions are \code{file} and \code{pipe} on Windows, where a
  \code{description} which is marked as being in UTF-8 is passed to
  Windows as a \sQuote{wide} character string.  This allows files with
  names not in the native encoding to be opened on file systems which
  use Unicode file names (such as \abbr{NTFS} but not FAT32).
}

\section{\samp{ftp://} URLs}{
  Most modern browsers do not support such URLs, and \samp{https://}
  ones are much preferred for use in \R.

  It is intended that \R will continue to allow such URLs for as long as
  \code{libcurl} does, but as they become rarer this is increasingly
  untested.   What \sQuote{protocols} the version of \code{libcurl}
  being used supports can be seen by calling \code{\link{libcurlVersion}()}.
}

\section{Number of connections}{
  There is a limit on the number of connections which can be allocated
  (not necessarily open) at any one time.  It is good practice to close
  connections when finished with, but if necessary garbage-collection
  will be invoked to close those connections without any \R object
  referring to them.

  The default limit is 128 (including the three terminal connections,
  \code{stdin}, \code{stdout} and \code{stderr}).  This can be increased
  when \R is started using the option \option{--max-connections=N}, where
  the maximum allowed value is 4096.

  However, many types of connections use other resources which are
  themselves limited.  Notably on Unix, \sQuote{file descriptors} which
  by default are per-process limited: this limits the number of
  connections using files, pipes and \I{fifo}s.  (The default limit is 256
  on macOS (and Solaris) but 1024 on Linux.  The limit can be raised in the
  shell used to launch \R, for example by \command{ulimit -n}.)  File
  descriptors are used for many other purposes including dynamically
  loading \abbr{DSO}/DLLs (see \code{\link{dyn.load}}) which may use up to 60\%
  of the limit.

  Windows has a default limit of 512 open C file streams: these are used
  by at least \code{file}, \code{gzfile}, \code{bzfile}, \code{xzfile},
  \code{zstdfile}, \code{pipe}, \code{url} and \code{unz} connections
  applied to files (rather than URLs).
  %% fifos on Windows use the Windows API for named pipes.

  Package \pkg{parallel}'s \code{\link{makeCluster}} uses socket
  connections to communicate with the worker processes, one per worker.
}

\note{
  \R's connections are modelled on those in S version 4 (see Chambers,
  1998).  However \R goes well beyond the S model, for example in output
  text connections and URL, compressed and socket connections.
  The default open mode in \R is \code{"r"} except for socket connections.
  This differs from S, where it is the equivalent of \code{"r+"},
  known as \code{"*"}.

  On (historic) platforms where \code{vsnprintf} does not return the needed
  length of output there is a 100,000 byte output limit on the length of
  a line for text output on \code{fifo}, \code{gzfile}, \code{bzfile},
  \code{xzfile} and \code{zstdfile} connections: longer lines will be
  truncated with a warning.
}
\references{
  Chambers, J. M. (1998)
  \emph{Programming with Data.  A Guide to the S Language.} Springer.

  Ripley, B. D. (2001).
  \dQuote{Connections.}
  \emph{R News}, \bold{1}(1), 16--7.
  \url{https://www.r-project.org/doc/Rnews/Rnews_2001-1.pdf}.
}

\seealso{
  \code{\link{textConnection}}, \code{\link{seek}},
  \code{\link{showConnections}}, \code{\link{pushBack}}.

  Functions making direct use of connections are (text-mode)
  \code{\link{readLines}}, \code{\link{writeLines}}, \code{\link{cat}},
  \code{\link{sink}}, \code{\link{scan}}, \code{\link{parse}},
  \code{\link{read.dcf}}, \code{\link{dput}}, \code{\link{dump}} and
  (binary-mode) \code{\link{readBin}}, \code{\link{readChar}},
  \code{\link{writeBin}}, \code{\link{writeChar}}, \code{\link{load}}
  and \code{\link{save}}.

  \code{\link{capabilities}} to see if \code{fifo} connections are
  supported by this build of \R.

  \code{\link{gzcon}} to wrap \command{gzip} (de)compression around a
  connection.

  \code{\link{options}} \code{HTTPUserAgent}, \code{internet.info} and
  \code{timeout} are used by some of the methods for URL connections.

  \code{\link{memCompress}} for more ways to (de)compress and references
  on data compression.

  \code{\link{extSoftVersion}} for the versions of the \code{zlib} (for
  \code{gzfile}), \code{bzip2} and \code{xz} libraries in use.

  To flush output to the Windows and macOS consoles, see
  \code{\link{flush.console}}.
}

\examples{
zzfil <- tempfile(fileext=".data")
zz <- file(zzfil, "w")  # open an output file connection
cat("TITLE extra line", "2 3 5 7", "", "11 13 17", file = zz, sep = "\n")
cat("One more line\n", file = zz)
close(zz)
readLines(zzfil)
unlink(zzfil)

zzfil <- tempfile(fileext=".gz")
zz <- gzfile(zzfil, "w")  # compressed file
cat("TITLE extra line", "2 3 5 7", "", "11 13 17", file = zz, sep = "\n")
close(zz)
readLines(zz <- gzfile(zzfil))
close(zz)
unlink(zzfil)
zz # an invalid connection

zzfil <- tempfile(fileext=".bz2")
zz <- bzfile(zzfil, "w")  # bzip2-ed file
cat("TITLE extra line", "2 3 5 7", "", "11 13 17", file = zz, sep = "\n")
close(zz)
zz # print() method: invalid connection
print(readLines(zz <- bzfile(zzfil)))
close(zz)
unlink(zzfil)

## An example of a file open for reading and writing
Tpath <- tempfile("test")
Tfile <- file(Tpath, "w+")
c(isOpen(Tfile, "r"), isOpen(Tfile, "w")) # both TRUE
cat("abc\ndef\n", file = Tfile)
readLines(Tfile)
seek(Tfile, 0, rw = "r") # reset to beginning
readLines(Tfile)
cat("ghi\n", file = Tfile)
readLines(Tfile)
\dontdiff{
Tfile # -> print() :  "valid" connection
close(Tfile)
Tfile # -> print() :  "invalid" connection
unlink(Tpath)
}
## We can do the same thing with an anonymous file.
Tfile <- file()
cat("abc\ndef\n", file = Tfile)
readLines(Tfile)
close(Tfile)

\dontrun{## fifo example -- may hang even with OS support for fifos
if(capabilities("fifo")) {
  zzfil <- tempfile(fileext="-fifo")
  zz <- fifo(zzfil, "w+")
  writeLines("abc", zz)
  print(readLines(zz))
  close(zz)
  unlink(zzfil)
}}
#ifdef unix
\donttest{
## Unix examples of use of pipes

# read listing of current directory
readLines(pipe("ls -1"))

# remove trailing commas.  Suppose
\dontshow{
oldwd <- setwd(tempdir())
writeLines(c("450, 390, 467, 654,  30, 542, 334, 432, 421,",
"357, 497, 493, 550, 549, 467, 575, 578, 342,",
"446, 547, 534, 495, 979, 479"), "data2_")}
\dontrun{\% cat data2_
450, 390, 467, 654,  30, 542, 334, 432, 421,
357, 497, 493, 550, 549, 467, 575, 578, 342,
446, 547, 534, 495, 979, 479}
# Then read this by
scan(pipe("sed -e s/,$// data2_"), sep = ",")
\dontshow{unlink("data2_"); setwd(oldwd)}

# convert decimal point to comma in output: see also write.table
# both R strings and (probably) the shell need \ doubled
zzfil <- tempfile("outfile")
zz <- pipe(paste("sed s/\\\\\\\\./,/ >", zzfil), "w")
cat(format(round(stats::rnorm(48), 4)), fill = 70, file = zz)
close(zz)
file.show(zzfil, delete.file = TRUE)
}
\dontrun{
## example for a machine running a finger daemon

con <- socketConnection(port = 79, blocking = TRUE)
writeLines(paste0(system("whoami", intern = TRUE), "\r"), con)
gsub(" *$", "", readLines(con))
close(con)
}
#endif

\dontrun{
## Two R processes communicating via non-blocking sockets
# R process 1
con1 <- socketConnection(port = 6011, server = TRUE)
writeLines(LETTERS, con1)
close(con1)

# R process 2
con2 <- socketConnection(Sys.info()["nodename"], port = 6011)
# as non-blocking, may need to loop for input
readLines(con2)
while(isIncomplete(con2)) {
   Sys.sleep(1)
   z <- readLines(con2)
   if(length(z)) print(z)
}
close(con2)

## examples of use of encodings
# write a file in UTF-8
cat(x, file = (con <- file("foo", "w", encoding = "UTF-8"))); close(con)
# read a 'Windows Unicode' file
A <- read.table(con <- file("students", encoding = "UCS-2LE")); close(con)
}}
\keyword{file}
\keyword{connection}
