This script lets you easily automate downloading data on transfers of surplus military equipment to law enforcement agencies in the US under the 1033 program. The first time you run it, it will download the most recent version of the data. On subsequent times it will download the most recent version of the data and save the file if newer data have become available. It saves data with the present date in the filename to ensure that no data are lost if an update is released that removes any previously-released data.
In addition to downloading the data, this script will also run an automated report.
It uses 1033.R to generate a plot of the total number of
Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles
transferred to US states from 1990 to the present. This script reads in the
data, filters out US territories, and then plot the trends over time. This
script can be adapted to generate any statistics you wish automatically.
If you want to automate downloading the data, you can do so with cron. The
example below will set the script to download the data on the first day of every
month:
crontab -e
0 0 1 * * cd /path/to/script && ./1033.shI use a slightly modified version of 1033.sh to update the
.Rmd file
that generates my
post on the transfer of MRAPs to police departments in the US whenever
newer data become available.