This icon downloads a file from a given URL. By default the result is cached, but a target path can also be specified in order to save the file directly to a given location. This is particularly useful for data types that Metview does not have specific support for. 

The macro language equivalent is download().

The Download Editor

Url

Provide a URL that  will return a file. This can be, for instance, a URL that points directly to a particular file, or a request to a web server that could generate and return some data.

Target

This parameter is optional. If set, the downloaded file will be copied to the given location. The whole target path must be given, including the file name, and the parent directory must already exist. 

Example usage

# download the data and assign to a variable
data = download(url : "http://download.ecmwf.org/test-data/metview/gallery/2m_temperature.grib")
print('Values range from ', minvalue(data), ' to ', maxvalue(data))
write('local_copy_of_file.grib', data)

# example which uses the Target parameter to directly save the file
download(url: "http://download.ecmwf.org/test-data/grib_api/data/budg.md5", target: 'local_md5.txt')