[Bioc-devel] deprecation of keepSeqlevels and renameSeqlevels

[Martin Morgan]

Hi Michael --

On 5/20/2013 5:56 AM, Michael Lawrence wrote:
> While it's cool that seqlevels<- has become so flexible, I still claim that
> rename/keep/drop would be a lot easier to read, because they describe the
> high-level operation, and there's no reason to deprecate them. They're also
> easier to remember. For example, for dropping with seqlevels<-, the user needs
> to remember that "force" is necessary to drop. Much easier to just say
> "dropSeqlevels(), please". And reimplementing keepSeqlevels is still too
> complicated. Is it such a maintenance burden to have these simple wrappers sit
> on top of the low-level manipulators?
>
> Another suggestion: renameSeqlevels should not require a named vector (in cases
> where it is unnamed, require that it is parallel to the existing seqlevels, as
> with seqlevels<-).

I didn't really indicate what drove my desire to see keepSeqlevels deprecated. 
keepSeqlevels, seqlevels<-, and isActiveSeq were developed more or less 
independently, and have different contracts. The different contracts are 
confusing to the user, as is creating a usable help system when there are 
multiple end points for what is a common operation. The help pages of each were 
inadequate in different ways. And because the code was developed independently, 
support for different objects was inconsistent. So actually, yes, the 
maintenance (and use) burden for the previous state of affairs was substantial.

On the other hand, I agree that keepSeqlevels is convenient as a simple wrapper 
around seqlevels<-, in the same way that setNames and names<- are both useful.

So we could iterate to

   keepSeqlevels <-
       function(x, value, ...)
   {
       seqlevels(x, force=TRUE) <- value
       x
   }

but I'd be less enthusiastic about maintaining the original contract of 
keepSeqlevels, where keepSeqlevels(gr1, gr2), would have worked for two GRanges 
objects.

Martin

>
> Michael
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, May 18, 2013 at 6:00 PM, Martin Morgan <mtmorgan at fhcrc.org
> <mailto:mtmorgan at fhcrc.org>> wrote:
>
>     On 05/18/2013 05:42 PM, Martin Morgan wrote:
>
>         Some of the most common operations are straight-forward, e.g.,
>
>               > gr = GRanges(paste0("chr", c(1:22, "X", "Y")), IRanges(1, 100))
>               > seqlevels(gr) = sub("chr", "ch", seqlevels(gr))
>
>
>     To get a more comprehensive example I should have followed my own advice and
>     grabbed from the help page!
>
>           ## Rename:
>           seqlevels(txdb) <- sub("chr", "", seqlevels(txdb))
>           seqlevels(txdb)
>
>           seqlevels(txdb) <- paste0("CH", seqlevels(txdb))
>           seqlevels(txdb)
>
>           seqlevels(txdb)[seqlevels(__txdb) == "CHM"] <- "M"
>           seqlevels(txdb)
>
>
>     --
>     Computational Biology / Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
>     1100 Fairview Ave. N.
>     PO Box 19024 Seattle, WA 98109
>
>     Location: Arnold Building M1 B861
>     Phone: (206) 667-2793 <tel:%28206%29%20667-2793>
>
>


-- 
Dr. Martin Morgan, PhD
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
1100 Fairview Ave. N.
PO Box 19024 Seattle, WA 98109