Author: Adam H. Sparks
Date: 2026-06-01

# Setting Global Options for read.abares

#### Adam H. Sparks

#### 2026-06-01

{read.abares} provides a number of global options that can be set to control the behaviour of the package. These options can be set using the `options()` function in R, but a helper function, `read.abares_options()` is provided for more direct access and convenience.

## Download Options

### User Agent String

{read.abares} provides a default user agent string of `read.abares` but you can change it for your own use, e.g., “the user agent should be different on continuous integration services, and in development (based on, for instance, the GitHub usernames of the developers)”1. You can change the user agent string using the `user_agent` argument in the `read.abares_options()`:

    read.abares_options(user_agent = "your_custom_user_agent")

### Max Tries

{read.abares} will retry a download if it fails, up to a maximum number of retries. By default, this is set to `3`. You may override this using the `retries` argument in the `read.abares_options()`:

    read.abares_options(max_tries = 5) # set retries to 5

### Timeout Connect

{read.abares} defaults to a `timeout_connect` value of 20 seconds. You may override this using the `timeout_connect` argument in the `read.abares_options()`:

    read.abares_options(timeout_connect = 40) # set to 40 seconds

### Timeout

{read.abares} defaults to a `timeout` value of 5000 seconds. You may override this using the `timout` argument in the `read.abares_options()`:

    read.abares_options(timeout = 10000) # set to 10,000 seconds

## Package verbosity

{read.abares} by default provides progress bars for long downloads and details when importing some spatial files. You can change this to reduce the messages that you receive but not turn off errors. Valid options are:

- “verbose” (provides download status bars, file import messages and more),
- “default” (provides warning messages and error messages),
- “quiet” (provides error messages only).

This can be changed using the `verbosity` argument in the `read.abares_options()`:

    read.abares_options(verbosity = "default")
    # or
    read.abares_options(verbosity = "quiet")

1. rOpenSci Developers’ Guide: https://devguide.ropensci.org/pkg_building.html#packages-wrapping-web-resources-api-clients↩︎