More information on downloading datafiles

• To avoid unnecessary data transfer and costs, cloud datafiles are not downloaded locally until necessary.

• When downloaded, they are downloaded by default to a temporary local file that will exist at least as long as the python session is running

• Calling Datafile.download or using Datafile.local_path again will not re-download the file

• Any changes made to the datafile via the Datafile.open method are made to the local copy and then synced with the cloud object

Warning

External changes to cloud files will not be synced locally unless the datafile is re-instantiated.

• If you want a cloud datafile to be downloaded to a permanent location, you can do one of:

  datafile.download(local_path="my/local/path.csv")
  
  datafile.local_path = "my/local/path.csv"
  

• To pre-set a permanent download location on instantiation, run:

  datafile = Datafile("gs://my-bucket/path/to/file.dat", local_path="my/local/path.csv")