Importing and reshaping data
Mike Blazanin
Source:vignettes/gc02_import_reshape.Rmd
gc02_import_reshape.RmdWhere are we so far?
- Introduction:
vignette("gc01_gcplyr") -
Importing and reshaping data:
vignette("gc02_import_reshape") - Incorporating experimental designs:
vignette("gc03_incorporate_designs") - Pre-processing and plotting your data:
vignette("gc04_preprocess_plot") - Processing your data:
vignette("gc05_process") - Analyzing your data:
vignette("gc06_analyze") - Dealing with noise:
vignette("gc07_noise") - Best practices and other tips:
vignette("gc08_conclusion") - Working with multiple plates:
vignette("gc09_multiple_plates") - Using make_design to generate experimental designs:
vignette("gc10_using_make_design")
Previously, we gave a quick demonstration of what gcplyr
can do. Here, we’re going into more detail about how to import your data
into R and and transform it into a better layout.
If you haven’t already, load the necessary packages.
library(gcplyr)
#> ##
#> ## gcplyr (Version 1.10.0, Build Date: 2024-07-09)
#> ## See http://github.com/mikeblazanin/gcplyr for additional documentation
#> ## Please cite software as:
#> ## Blazanin, Michael. gcplyr: an R package for microbial growth
#> ## curve data analysis. BMC Bioinformatics 25, 232 (2024).
#> ## https://doi.org/10.1186/s12859-024-05817-3
#> ##Data formats and layouts
gcplyr was built to easily read all the most-common
tabular file formats. While this most explicitly includes formats like
csv, xls, and xlsx, in fact gcplyr functions for
reading or importing can work with
any file format that R’s built-in
read.table function can handle. If you’re working with
something besides csv, xls, or xlsx, simply specify the arguments you
would need for read.table to the relevant
gcplyr function and it should handle the rest.
Aside from file formats, growth curve data and designs can be organized in one of three different layouts: block-shaped, wide-shaped, and tidy-shaped, described below.
Tidy-shaped data is the best layout for analyses, but most plate
readers output block-shaped or wide-shaped data, and most user-created
design files will be block-shaped. Thus, gcplyr works by
reshaping block-shaped and wide-shaped data into tidy-shaped data, then
running analyses.
So, how can you tell which layout your data is in?
Block-shaped
In block-shaped data, the organization of the data corresponds
directly with the layout of the physical multi-well plate it was
generated from. For instance, a data point from the third row and fourth
column of the data.frame will be from the well in the third
row and fourth column in the physical plate. A timeseries of growth
curve data that is block-shaped will consist of many separate
block-shaped data.frames, each corresponding to a single timepoint.
For example, here is a block-shaped data.frame of a
96-well plate (with “…” indicating Columns 4 - 10, not shown). In this
example, all the data shown would be from a single timepoint.
| Column 1 | Column 2 | Column 3 | … | Column 11 | Column 12 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Row A | 0.060 | 0.083 | 0.086 | … | 0.082 | 0.085 |
| Row B | 0.099 | 0.069 | 0.065 | … | 0.066 | 0.078 |
| Row C | 0.081 | 0.071 | 0.070 | … | 0.064 | 0.084 |
| Row D | 0.094 | 0.075 | 0.065 | … | 0.067 | 0.087 |
| Row E | 0.052 | 0.054 | 0.072 | … | 0.079 | 0.065 |
| Row F | 0.087 | 0.095 | 0.091 | … | 0.075 | 0.058 |
| Row G | 0.095 | 0.079 | 0.099 | … | 0.063 | 0.075 |
| Row H | 0.056 | 0.069 | 0.070 | … | 0.053 | 0.078 |
Wide-shaped
In wide-shaped data, each column of the dataframe corresponds to a single well from the plate, and each row of the dataframe corresponds to a single timepoint. Typically, headers contain the well names.
For example, here is a wide-shaped dataframe of a 96-well plate (here, “…” indicates the 91 columns A4 - H10, not shown). Each row of this dataframe corresponds to a single timepoint.
| Time | A1 | A2 | A3 | … | H11 | H12 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 0.060 | 0.083 | 0.086 | … | 0.053 | 0.078 |
| 1 | 0.012 | 0.166 | 0.172 | … | 0.106 | 0.156 |
| 2 | 0.024 | 0.332 | 0.344 | … | 0.212 | 0.312 |
| 3 | 0.048 | 0.664 | 0.688 | … | 0.424 | 0.624 |
| 4 | 0.096 | 1.128 | 0.976 | … | 0.848 | 1.148 |
| 5 | 0.162 | 1.256 | 1.152 | … | 1.096 | 1.296 |
| 6 | 0.181 | 1.292 | 1.204 | … | 1.192 | 1.352 |
| 7 | 0.197 | 1.324 | 1.288 | … | 1.234 | 1.394 |
Tidy-shaped
In tidy-shaped data, there is a single column that contains all the plate reader measurements, with each unique measurement having its own row. Additional columns specify the timepoint, which well the data comes from, and any other design elements.
Note that, in tidy-shaped data, the number of rows equals the number
of wells times the number of timepoints. Yes, that’s a lot of rows! But
tidy-shaped data is the best format for analyses, and is common in a
number of R packages, including ggplot, where
it’s sometimes called a “long” format.
| Timepoint | Well | Measurement |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | A1 | 0.060 |
| 1 | A2 | 0.083 |
| 1 | A3 | 0.086 |
| … | … | … |
| 7 | H10 | 1.113 |
| 7 | H11 | 1.234 |
| 7 | H12 | 1.394 |
Importing data
Once you’ve determined what format your data is in, you can begin
importing it using the read_* or import_*
functions of gcplyr.
If your data is block-shaped: use
import_blockmeasures and start in the next section:
Importing block-shaped
data
If your data is wide-shaped: use
read_wides and skip down to the Importing wide-shaped
data section
If your data is already tidy-shaped: use
read_tidys and skip down to the Importing tidy-shaped
data section.
Importing block-shaped data
To import block-shaped data, use the
import_blockmeasures function.
import_blockmeasures only requires a list of filenames (or
relative file paths) and will return a wide-shaped
data.frame that you can save in R.
A basic example
Here’s a simple example. First, we need to create a series of example
block-shaped .csv files. When working with real growth
curve data, these files would be output by the plate reader, but we’ll
generate them with make_example. In this case,
make_example creates the files and returns a vector with
the names of the files, which we’ll store in
temp_filenames.
temp_filenames <- make_example(vignette = 2, example = 1)
#> Files have been writtenIf you’ve saved all the files to a single folder, you can easily get
a vector with all their names using list.files. If your
folder contains other files, you can specify a regular expression
pattern to limit it to just those you want to import:
# Here we print all the files we're going to read
list.files(pattern = "Plate1.*csv")
#> [1] "Plate1-0_00_00.csv" "Plate1-0_15_00.csv" "Plate1-0_30_00.csv"
#> [4] "Plate1-0_45_00.csv" "Plate1-1_00_00.csv" "Plate1-1_15_00.csv"
#> [7] "Plate1-1_30_00.csv" "Plate1-1_45_00.csv" "Plate1-10_00_00.csv"
#> [10] "Plate1-10_15_00.csv" "Plate1-10_30_00.csv" "Plate1-10_45_00.csv"
#> [13] "Plate1-11_00_00.csv" "Plate1-11_15_00.csv" "Plate1-11_30_00.csv"
#> [16] "Plate1-11_45_00.csv" "Plate1-12_00_00.csv" "Plate1-12_15_00.csv"
#> [19] "Plate1-12_30_00.csv" "Plate1-12_45_00.csv" "Plate1-13_00_00.csv"
#> [22] "Plate1-13_15_00.csv" "Plate1-13_30_00.csv" "Plate1-13_45_00.csv"
#> [25] "Plate1-14_00_00.csv" "Plate1-14_15_00.csv" "Plate1-14_30_00.csv"
#> [28] "Plate1-14_45_00.csv" "Plate1-15_00_00.csv" "Plate1-15_15_00.csv"
#> [31] "Plate1-15_30_00.csv" "Plate1-15_45_00.csv" "Plate1-16_00_00.csv"
#> [34] "Plate1-16_15_00.csv" "Plate1-16_30_00.csv" "Plate1-16_45_00.csv"
#> [37] "Plate1-17_00_00.csv" "Plate1-17_15_00.csv" "Plate1-17_30_00.csv"
#> [40] "Plate1-17_45_00.csv" "Plate1-18_00_00.csv" "Plate1-18_15_00.csv"
#> [43] "Plate1-18_30_00.csv" "Plate1-18_45_00.csv" "Plate1-19_00_00.csv"
#> [46] "Plate1-19_15_00.csv" "Plate1-19_30_00.csv" "Plate1-19_45_00.csv"
#> [49] "Plate1-2_00_00.csv" "Plate1-2_15_00.csv" "Plate1-2_30_00.csv"
#> [52] "Plate1-2_45_00.csv" "Plate1-20_00_00.csv" "Plate1-20_15_00.csv"
#> [55] "Plate1-20_30_00.csv" "Plate1-20_45_00.csv" "Plate1-21_00_00.csv"
#> [58] "Plate1-21_15_00.csv" "Plate1-21_30_00.csv" "Plate1-21_45_00.csv"
#> [61] "Plate1-22_00_00.csv" "Plate1-22_15_00.csv" "Plate1-22_30_00.csv"
#> [64] "Plate1-22_45_00.csv" "Plate1-23_00_00.csv" "Plate1-23_15_00.csv"
#> [67] "Plate1-23_30_00.csv" "Plate1-23_45_00.csv" "Plate1-24_00_00.csv"
#> [70] "Plate1-3_00_00.csv" "Plate1-3_15_00.csv" "Plate1-3_30_00.csv"
#> [73] "Plate1-3_45_00.csv" "Plate1-4_00_00.csv" "Plate1-4_15_00.csv"
#> [76] "Plate1-4_30_00.csv" "Plate1-4_45_00.csv" "Plate1-5_00_00.csv"
#> [79] "Plate1-5_15_00.csv" "Plate1-5_30_00.csv" "Plate1-5_45_00.csv"
#> [82] "Plate1-6_00_00.csv" "Plate1-6_15_00.csv" "Plate1-6_30_00.csv"
#> [85] "Plate1-6_45_00.csv" "Plate1-7_00_00.csv" "Plate1-7_15_00.csv"
#> [88] "Plate1-7_30_00.csv" "Plate1-7_45_00.csv" "Plate1-8_00_00.csv"
#> [91] "Plate1-8_15_00.csv" "Plate1-8_30_00.csv" "Plate1-8_45_00.csv"
#> [94] "Plate1-9_00_00.csv" "Plate1-9_15_00.csv" "Plate1-9_30_00.csv"
#> [97] "Plate1-9_45_00.csv"
# Here we save them to the temp_filenames variable
temp_filenames <- list.files(pattern = "Plate1.*csv")Here’s what one of the files looks like (where the values are absorbance/optical density):
print_df(read.csv(temp_filenames[1], header = FALSE, colClasses = "character"))
#>
#> Time 0
#>
#> 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
#> A 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> B 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> C 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> D 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> E 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> F 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> G 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> H 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002This file corresponds to all the reads for a single plate taken at the very first timepoint. We can see that the second row of the file contains some metadata about the timepoint when this plate read read was taken. Then, the data itself starts with column headers on row 4 and rownames in column 1.
If we want to read these files into R, we simply provide
import_blockmeasures with the vector of file names, and
save the result to some R object (here,
imported_blockdata). import_blockmeasures
assumes your data starts on the first row and column, and ends on the
last row and column, unless you specify otherwise.
# Now let's read it with import_blockmeasures
imported_blockdata <- import_blockmeasures(
files = temp_filenames, startrow = 4)
head(imported_blockdata, c(6, 8))
#> block_name A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 A6 A7
#> 1 Plate1-0_00_00 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> 2 Plate1-0_15_00 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> 3 Plate1-0_30_00 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> 4 Plate1-0_45_00 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> 5 Plate1-1_00_00 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> 6 Plate1-1_15_00 0.002 0.003 0.002 0.003 0.003 0.002 0.002Here we can see that import_blockmeasures has created a
wide-shaped R object containing the data from all of our reads. It has
also added the file names under the block_name column, so
that we can easily track which row came from which file.
If you’re looking at your data in Excel or a similar spreadsheet
program, you’ll notice that the columns are coded by letter.
import_blockmeasures allows you to specify the column by
letter too.
# We can specify rows or columns by Excel-style letters too
imported_blockdata <- import_blockmeasures(
files = temp_filenames,
startrow = 4, startcol = "A")Specifying metadata
Sometimes, your input files will have information you want to import
that’s not included in the main block of data. For instance, with
block-shaped data the timepoint is nearly always specified somewhere in
the input file. import_blockmeasures can include that
information as well via the metadata argument.
For example, let’s return to our most-recent example files:
print_df(read.csv(temp_filenames[1], header = FALSE, colClasses = "character"))
#>
#> Time 0
#>
#> 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
#> A 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> B 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> C 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> D 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> E 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> F 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> G 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> H 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002In these files, the timepoint information was located in the 2nd row
and 3rd column. Here’s how we could specify that metadata in our
import_blockmeasures command:
# Reading the blockcurves files with metadata included
imported_blockdata <- import_blockmeasures(
files = temp_filenames,
startrow = 4,
metadata = list("time" = c(2, 3)))
head(imported_blockdata, c(6, 8))
#> block_name time A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 A6
#> 1 Plate1-0_00_00 0 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> 2 Plate1-0_15_00 900 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> 3 Plate1-0_30_00 1800 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> 4 Plate1-0_45_00 2700 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> 5 Plate1-1_00_00 3600 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> 6 Plate1-1_15_00 4500 0.002 0.003 0.002 0.003 0.003 0.002You can see that the metadata you specified has been added as a
column in our output data.frame. When specifying metadata,
the metadata argument must be a list of named vectors. Each vector
should have two elements specifying the location of the metadata in the
input files: the first element is the row, the second element is the
column.
You can also specify the location of metadata with Excel-style lettering.
# Reading the blockcurves files with metadata included
imported_blockdata <- import_blockmeasures(
files = temp_filenames,
startrow = 4,
metadata = list("time" = c(2, "C")))Reading multiple blocks from a single file
import_blockmeasures can also import multiple blocks
from a single file, which some plate readers may output. In this case,
you simply have to specify a vector of rows and columns that define the
location of each block within the file.
First, let’s create an example file (normally this file would be created by the plate reader).
make_example(vignette = 2, example = 2)
#> Files have been written
#> [1] "./blocks_single.csv"Let’s take a look at what the file looks like:
print_df(head(read.csv("blocks_single.csv", header = FALSE,
colClasses = "character"),
c(20, 8)))
#> block_name Plate1-0_00_00
#> time 0
#> 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
#> A 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> B 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> C 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> D 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> E 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> F 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> G 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> H 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#>
#> block_name Plate1-0_15_00
#> time 900
#> 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
#> A 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> B 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> C 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> D 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> E 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002We can see that the first block has some metadata above it, then the
block of data itself. After that there’s an empty row before the next
block starts. In fact, if we look at the whole file, we’ll notice that
all the blocks go from column 1 (“A” in Excel) to column 13 (“M” in
Excel), they start on rows 3, 15, 27, 39, etc, and end on rows 11, 23,
35, 47, etc. When we look in the file, we can also see that the very
last block starts on row 1155 and ends on row 1163. Let’s read this
information in using import_blockmeasures:
imported_blockdata <- import_blockmeasures(
"blocks_single.csv",
startrow = seq(from = 3, to = 1155, by = 12),
endrow = seq(from = 11, to = 1163, by = 12),
startcol = 1, endcol = 13)Here we’ve used the built-in R function seq
to generate the full vector of startrows and
endrows. If we take a look, we can see that it’s been read
successfully:
head(imported_blockdata, c(6, 8))
#> block_name A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 A6 A7
#> 1 blocks_single 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> 2 blocks_single 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> 3 blocks_single 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> 4 blocks_single 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> 5 blocks_single 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> 6 blocks_single 0.002 0.003 0.002 0.003 0.003 0.002 0.002Now let’s add some metadata. Because we’re reading from a single
file, we need to specify the metadata slightly differently. Instead of
the metadata being a single vector c(row,column) with the
location, it’s going to be a list of two vectors, one with the row
numbers, and one with the column numbers.
Going back to the file, we can see that the time of the block is saved in the second column, in rows 2, 14, 26, 38, … through 1154.
imported_blockdata <- import_blockmeasures(
"blocks_single.csv",
startrow = seq(from = 3, to = 1155, by = 12),
endrow = seq(from = 11, to = 1163, by = 12),
startcol = 1, endcol = 13,
metadata = list("time" = list(seq(from = 2, to = 1154, by = 12), 2)))And now if we take a look at the resulting object, we can see that the time metadata has been incorporated.
head(imported_blockdata, c(6, 8))
#> block_name time A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 A6
#> 1 blocks_single 0 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> 2 blocks_single 900 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> 3 blocks_single 1800 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> 4 blocks_single 2700 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> 5 blocks_single 3600 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> 6 blocks_single 4500 0.002 0.003 0.002 0.003 0.003 0.002What to do next
Now that you’ve imported your block-shaped data, you’ll need to transform it for later analyses. Jump directly to the Transforming data section.
Importing wide-shaped data
To import wide-shaped data, use the read_wides function.
read_wides only requires a filename (or vector of
filenames, or relative file paths) and will return a
data.frame (or list of data.frames) that you can save in
R.
A basic example
Here’s a simple example. First, we need to create an example
wide-shaped .csv file. Don’t worry how this code works.
When working with real growth curve data, these files would be output by
the plate reader. All you need to do is know the file name(s) to put in
you R code. In this example, the file name is
widedata.csv.
make_example(vignette = 2, example = 3)
#> Files have been written
#> [1] "./widedata.csv"Here’s what the start of the file looks like (where the values are absorbance/optical density):
# Let's take a peek at what this file looks like
print_df(head(read.csv("widedata.csv", header = FALSE,
colClasses = "character"),
c(10, 10)))
#> Experiment name Experiment_1
#> Start date 2024-07-09
#>
#>
#> Time A1 B1 C1 D1 E1 F1 G1 H1 A2
#> 0 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> 900 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> 1800 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> 2700 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> 3600 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.003 0.003 0.002 0.002 0.003 0.002This file contains all the reads for a single plate taken across all timepoints. We can see that the first two rows contain some metadata saved by the plate reader, like the name of the experiment and the date of the experiment. Then, we can see that the data starts on the 5th row with a header. The first column contains the timepoint information, and each subsequent column corresponds to a well in the plate.
If we want to read this file into R, we simply provide
read_wides with the file name, and save the result to some
R object (here, imported_widedata).
read_wides assumes your data starts on the first row and
column, and ends on the last row and column, unless you specify
otherwise.
imported_widedata <- read_wides(files = "widedata.csv", startrow = 5)The resulting data.frame looks like this:
head(imported_widedata, c(6, 10))
#> file Time A1 B1 C1 D1 E1 F1 G1 H1
#> 6 widedata 0 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> 7 widedata 900 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> 8 widedata 1800 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> 9 widedata 2700 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> 10 widedata 3600 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.003 0.003 0.002 0.002 0.003
#> 11 widedata 4500 0.002 0.003 0.002 0.003 0.003 0.002 0.003 0.003Note that read_wides automatically saves the filename the
data was imported from into the first column of the output
data.frame. This is done to ensure that later on,
data.frames from multiple plates can be combined without
fear of losing the identity of each plate.
If you’re looking at your data in Excel or a similar spreadsheet
program, you’ll notice that the columns are coded by letter.
read_wides allows you to specify the column by letter
too.
imported_widedata <- read_wides(files = "widedata.csv",
startrow = 5, startcol = "A")Specifying metadata
Sometimes, your input files will have information you want to import
that’s not included in the main block of data. read_wides
can include that information as well via the metadata
argument.
The metadata argument should be a list of named vectors.
Each vector should be of length 2, with the first entry specifying the
row and the second entry specifying the column where the metadata is
located.
For example, in our previous example files, the experiment name was located in the 2nd row, 2nd column, and the start date was located in the 3rd row, 2nd column. Here’s how we could specify that metadata:
imported_widedata <- read_wides(files = "widedata.csv",
startrow = 5,
metadata = list("experiment_name" = c(1, 2),
"start_date" = c(2, 2)))
head(imported_widedata, c(6, 8))
#> file experiment_name start_date Time A1 B1 C1 D1
#> 6 widedata Experiment_1 2024-07-09 0 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> 7 widedata Experiment_1 2024-07-09 900 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> 8 widedata Experiment_1 2024-07-09 1800 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> 9 widedata Experiment_1 2024-07-09 2700 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002
#> 10 widedata Experiment_1 2024-07-09 3600 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.003
#> 11 widedata Experiment_1 2024-07-09 4500 0.002 0.003 0.002 0.003You can also specify the location of metadata with Excel-style lettering.
imported_widedata <- read_wides(files = "widedata.csv",
startrow = 5,
metadata = list("experiment_name" = c(1, "B"),
"start_date" = c(2, "B")))What to do next
Now that you’ve imported your wide-shaped data, you’ll need to transform it for later analyses. Continue on to the Transforming data section.
Importing tidy-shaped data
To import tidy-shaped data, you could use the built-in R
functions like read.table. However, if you need a few more
options, you can use the gcplyr function
read_tidys. Unlike the built-in option,
read_tidys can import multiple tidy-shaped files at once,
can add the filename as a column in the resulting data.frame, and can
handle files where the tidy-shaped information doesn’t start on the
first row and column.
read_tidys only requires a filename (or vector of
filenames, or relative file paths) and will return a
data.frame (or list of data.frames) that you can save in
R.
If you’ve read in your tidy-shaped data, you won’t need to transform it, so you can skip down to the What’s next? section.
Transforming data
Now that you’ve gotten your data into R, we need to
transform it before we can do analyses. To reiterate, this is necessary
because most plate readers that generate growth curve data outputs it in
block-shaped or wide-shaped files, but tidy-shaped
data.frames are the best shape for analyses and required by
gcplyr.
You can transform your data.frames using the
trans_* functions in gcplyr.
Transforming from wide-shaped to tidy-shaped
If the data you’ve read into the R environment is
wide-shaped (or you’ve gotten wide-shaped data by transforming your
originally block-shaped data), you’ll transform it to tidy-shaped using
trans_wide_to_tidy.
First, you need to provide trans_wide_to_tidy with the
R object created by import_blockmeasures or
read_wides.
Then, you have to specify one of:
- the columns your data (the spectrophotometric measures) are in via
data_cols - what columns your non-data (e.g. time and other information) are in
via
id_cols
imported_blocks_now_tidy <- trans_wide_to_tidy(
wides = imported_blockdata,
id_cols = c("block_name", "time"))
imported_wides_now_tidy <- trans_wide_to_tidy(
wides = imported_widedata,
id_cols = c("file", "experiment_name", "start_date", "Time"))
print(head(imported_blocks_now_tidy), row.names = FALSE)
#> block_name time Well Measurements
#> blocks_single 0 A1 0.002
#> blocks_single 0 A2 0.002
#> blocks_single 0 A3 0.002
#> blocks_single 0 A4 0.002
#> blocks_single 0 A5 0.002
#> blocks_single 0 A6 0.002What’s next?
Now that you’ve imported and transformed your data to be tidy-shaped, you likely want to incorporate some design information on what went into each well (and plate). Alternatively, if you’d like to skip that step for now, you can go directly to pre-processing and plotting your data
- Introduction:
vignette("gc01_gcplyr") - Importing and reshaping data:
vignette("gc02_import_reshape") - Incorporating experimental designs:
vignette("gc03_incorporate_designs") - Pre-processing and plotting your data:
vignette("gc04_preprocess_plot") - Processing your data:
vignette("gc05_process") - Analyzing your data:
vignette("gc06_analyze") - Dealing with noise:
vignette("gc07_noise") - Best practices and other tips:
vignette("gc08_conclusion") - Working with multiple plates:
vignette("gc09_multiple_plates") - Using make_design to generate experimental designs:
vignette("gc10_using_make_design")