XStringSet-class {Biostrings} | R Documentation

## XStringSet objects

### Description

The BStringSet class is a container for storing a set of `BString` objects and for making its manipulation easy and efficient.

Similarly, the DNAStringSet (or RNAStringSet, or AAStringSet) class is a container for storing a set of `DNAString` (or `RNAString`, or `AAString`) objects.

All those containers derive directly (and with no additional slots) from the XStringSet virtual class.

### Usage

    ## Constructors:
    BStringSet(x=character(), start=NA, end=NA, width=NA, use.names=TRUE)
    DNAStringSet(x=character(), start=NA, end=NA, width=NA, use.names=TRUE)
    RNAStringSet(x=character(), start=NA, end=NA, width=NA, use.names=TRUE)
    AAStringSet(x=character(), start=NA, end=NA, width=NA, use.names=TRUE)

    ## Accessor-like methods:
    ## S4 method for signature 'character'
    width(x)
    ## S4 method for signature 'XStringSet'
    nchar(x, type="chars", allowNA=FALSE)

    ## ... and more (see below)

### Arguments

`x` | Either a character vector (with no NAs), or an XString, XStringSet or XStringViews object.
`start,end,width` | Either `NA`, a single integer, or an integer vector of the same length as `x` specifying how `x` should be "narrowed" (see `?narrow` for the details).
`use.names` | `TRUE` or `FALSE`. Should names be preserved?
`type,allowNA` | Ignored.

### Details

The `BStringSet`, `DNAStringSet`, `RNAStringSet` and `AAStringSet` functions are constructors that can be used to turn input `x` into an XStringSet object of the desired base type.

They also allow the user to "narrow" the sequences contained in `x` via proper use of the `start`, `end` and/or `width` arguments. In this context, "narrowing" means dropping a prefix or/and a suffix of each sequence in `x`. The "narrowing" capabilities of these constructors can be illustrated by the following property: if `x` is a character vector (with no NAs), or an XStringSet (or XStringViews) object, then the 3 following transformations are equivalent:

  `BStringSet(x, start=mystart, end=myend, width=mywidth)`

  `subseq(BStringSet(x), start=mystart, end=myend, width=mywidth)`

  `BStringSet(subseq(x, start=mystart, end=myend, width=mywidth))`

Note that, besides being more convenient, the first form is also more efficient on character vectors.

### Accessor-like methods

In the code snippets below, `x` is an XStringSet object.

  `length(x)`: The number of sequences in `x`.

  `width(x)`: A vector of non-negative integers containing the number of letters for each element in `x`. Note that `width(x)` is also defined for a character vector with no NAs and is equivalent to `nchar(x, type="bytes")`.

  `names(x)`: `NULL` or a character vector of the same length as `x` containing a short user-provided description or comment for each element in `x`. These are the only data in an XStringSet object that can safely be changed by the user. All the other data are immutable! As a general recommendation, the user should never try to modify an object by accessing its slots directly.

  `alphabet(x)`: Return `NULL`, `DNA_ALPHABET`, `RNA_ALPHABET` or `AA_ALPHABET` depending on whether `x` is a BStringSet, DNAStringSet, RNAStringSet or AAStringSet object.

  `nchar(x)`: The same as `width(x)`.

### Subsequence extraction and related transformations

In the code snippets below, `x` is a character vector (with no NAs), or an XStringSet (or XStringViews) object.

  `subseq(x, start=NA, end=NA, width=NA)`: Applies `subseq` on each element in `x`. See `?subseq` for the details.

  Note that this is similar to what `substr` does on a character vector. However there are some noticeable differences:

  (1) the arguments are `start` and `stop` for `substr`;

  (2) the SEW interface (start/end/width) interface of `subseq` is richer (e.g. support for negative start or end values); and (3) `subseq` checks that the specified start/end/width values are valid i.e., unlike `substr`, it throws an error if they define "out of limits" subsequences or subsequences with a negative width.

  `narrow(x, start=NA, end=NA, width=NA, use.names=TRUE)`: Same as `subseq`. The only differences are: (1) `narrow` has a `use.names` argument; and (2) all the things `narrow` and `subseq` work on (IRanges, XStringSet or XStringViews objects for `narrow`, XVector or XStringSet objects for `subseq`). But they both work and do the same thing on an XStringSet object.

  `threebands(x, start=NA, end=NA, width=NA)`: Like the method for IRanges objects, the `threebands` methods for character vectors and XStringSet objects extend the capability of `narrow` by returning the 3 set of subsequences (the left, middle and right subsequences) associated to the narrowing operation. See `?threebands` in the IRanges package for the details.

  `subseq(x, start=NA, end=NA, width=NA) <- value`: A vectorized version of the `subseq<-` method for XVector objects. See `?`subseq<-`` for the details.

### Subsetting and appending

In the code snippets below, `x` and `values` are XStringSet objects, and `i` should be an index specifying the elements to extract.

  `x[i]`: Return a new XStringSet object made of the selected elements.

  `x[[i]]`: Extract the i-th `XString` object from `x`.

  `append(x, values, after=length(x))`: Add sequences in `values` to `x`.

### Set operations

In the code snippets below, `x` and `y` are XStringSet objects.

  `union(x, y)`: Union of `x` and `y`.

  `intersect(x, y)`: Intersection of `x` and `y`.

  `setdiff(x, y)`: Asymmetric set difference of `x` and `y`.

  `setequal(x, y)`: Set equality of `x` to `y`.

### Other methods

In the code snippets below, `x` is an XStringSet object.

  `unlist(x)`: Turns `x` into an XString object by combining the sequences in `x` together. Fast equivalent to `do.call(c, as.list(x))`.

  `as.character(x, use.names=TRUE)`: Converts `x` to a character vector of the same length as `x`. The `use.names` argument controls whether or not `names(x)` should be propagated to the names of the returned vector.

  `as.factor(x)`: Converts `x` to a factor, via `as.character(x)`.

  `as.matrix(x, use.names=TRUE)`: Returns a character matrix containing the "exploded" representation of the strings. Can only be used on an XStringSet object with equal-width strings. The `use.names` argument controls whether or not `names(x)` should be propagated to the row names of the returned matrix.

  `toString(x)`: Equivalent to `toString(as.character(x))`.

  `show(x)`: By default the `show` method displays 5 head and 5 tail lines. The number of lines can be altered by setting the global options `showHeadLines` and `showTailLines`. If the object length is less than the sum of the options, the full object is displayed. These options affect GRanges, GAlignments, IRanges, and XStringSet objects.

### Display

The letters in a DNAStringSet or RNAStringSet object are colored when displayed by the `show()` method. Set global option `Biostrings.coloring` to FALSE to turn off this coloring.

### Author(s)

H. Pagès

### See Also

- `readDNAStringSet` and `writeXStringSet` for reading/writing a DNAStringSet object (or other XStringSet derivative) from/to a FASTA or FASTQ file.

- XStringSet-comparison

- XString objects.

- XStringViews objects.

- XStringSetList objects.

- `subseq`, `narrow`, and `substr`.

- `compact`

- XVectorList objects.

### Examples

    ## ---------------------------------------------------------------------
    ## A. USING THE XStringSet CONSTRUCTORS ON A CHARACTER VECTOR OR FACTOR
    ## ---------------------------------------------------------------------
    ## Note that there is no XStringSet() constructor, but an XStringSet
    ## family of constructors: BStringSet(), DNAStringSet(), RNAStringSet(),
    ## etc...
    x0 <- c("#CTC-NACCAGTAT", "#TTGA", "TACCTAGAG")
    width(x0)
    x1 <- BStringSet(x0)
    x1

    ## 3 equivalent ways to obtain the same BStringSet object:
    BStringSet(x0, start=4, end=-3)
    subseq(x1, start=4, end=-3)
    BStringSet(subseq(x0, start=4, end=-3))

    dna0 <- DNAStringSet(x0, start=4, end=-3)
    dna0  # 'options(Biostrings.coloring=FALSE)' to turn off coloring

    names(dna0)
    names(dna0)[2] <- "seqB"
    dna0

    ## When the input vector contains a lot of duplicates, turning it into
    ## a factor first before passing it to the constructor will produce an
    ## XStringSet object that is more compact in memory:
    library(hgu95av2probe)
    x2 <- sample(hgu95av2probe$sequence, 999000, replace=TRUE)
    dna2a <- DNAStringSet(x2)
    dna2b <- DNAStringSet(factor(x2))  # slower but result is more compact
    object.size(dna2a)
    object.size(dna2b)

    ## ---------------------------------------------------------------------
    ## B. USING THE XStringSet CONSTRUCTORS ON A SINGLE SEQUENCE (XString
    ##    OBJECT OR CHARACTER STRING)
    ## ---------------------------------------------------------------------
    x3 <- "abcdefghij"
    BStringSet(x3, start=2, end=6:2)  # behaves like 'substring(x3, 2, 6:2)'
    BStringSet(x3, start=-(1:6))
    x4 <- BString(x3)
    BStringSet(x4, end=-(1:6), width=3)

    ## Randomly extract 1 million 40-mers from C. elegans chrI:
    extractRandomReads <- function(subject, nread, readlength)
    {
        if (!is.integer(readlength))
            readlength <- as.integer(readlength)
        start <- sample(length(subject) - readlength + 1L, nread,
                        replace=TRUE)
        DNAStringSet(subject, start=start, width=readlength)
    }
    library(BSgenome.Celegans.UCSC.ce2)
    rndreads <- extractRandomReads(Celegans$chrI, 1000000, 40)
    ## Notes:
    ## - This takes only 2 or 3 seconds versus several hours for a solution
    ##   using substring() on a standard character string.
    ## - The short sequences in 'rndreads' can be seen as the result of a
    ##   simulated high-throughput sequencing experiment. A non-realistic
    ##   one though because:
    ##     (a) It assumes that the underlying technology is perfect (the
    ##         generated reads have no technology induced errors).
    ##     (b) It assumes that the sequenced genome is exactly the same as the
    ##         reference genome.
    ##     (c) The simulated reads can contain IUPAC ambiguity letters only
    ##         because the reference genome contains them. In a real
    ##         high-throughput sequencing experiment, the sequenced genome
    ##         of course doesn't contain those letters, but the sequencer
    ##         can introduce them in the generated reads to indicate ambiguous
    ##         base-calling.
    ##     (d) The simulated reads come from the plus strand only of a single
    ##         chromosome.
    ## - See the getSeq() function in the BSgenome package for how to
    ##   circumvent (d) i.e. how to generate reads that come from the whole
    ##   genome (plus and minus strands of all chromosomes).

    ## ---------------------------------------------------------------------
    ## C. USING THE XStringSet CONSTRUCTORS ON AN XStringSet OBJECT
    ## ---------------------------------------------------------------------
    library(drosophila2probe)
    probes <- DNAStringSet(drosophila2probe)
    probes

    RNAStringSet(probes, start=2, end=-5)  # does NOT copy the sequence data!

    ## ---------------------------------------------------------------------
    ## D. USING THE XStringSet CONSTRUCTORS ON AN ORDINARY list OF XString
    ##    OBJECTS
    ## ---------------------------------------------------------------------
    probes10 <- head(probes, n=10)
    set.seed(33)
    shuffled_nucleotides <- lapply(probes10, sample)
    shuffled_nucleotides

    DNAStringSet(shuffled_nucleotides)  # does NOT copy the sequence data!

    ## Note that the same result can be obtained in a more compact way with
    ## just:
    set.seed(33)
    endoapply(probes10, sample)

    ## ---------------------------------------------------------------------
    ## E. USING subseq() ON AN XStringSet OBJECT
    ## ---------------------------------------------------------------------
    subseq(probes, start=2, end=-5)

    subseq(probes, start=13, end=13) <- "N"
    probes

    ## Add/remove a prefix:
    subseq(probes, start=1, end=0) <- "--"
    probes
    subseq(probes, end=2) <- ""
    probes

    ## Do more complicated things:
    subseq(probes, start=4:7, end=7) <- c("YYYY", "YYY", "YY", "Y")
    subseq(probes, start=4, end=6) <- subseq(probes, start=-2:-5)
    probes

    ## ---------------------------------------------------------------------
    ## F. UNLISTING AN XStringSet OBJECT
    ## ---------------------------------------------------------------------
    library(drosophila2probe)
    probes <- DNAStringSet(drosophila2probe)
    unlist(probes)

    ## ---------------------------------------------------------------------
    ## G. COMPACTING AN XStringSet OBJECT
    ## ---------------------------------------------------------------------
    ## As a particular type of XVectorList objects, XStringSet objects can
    ## optionally be compacted. Compacting is done typically before
    ## serialization. See ?compact for more information.
    library(drosophila2probe)
    probes <- DNAStringSet(drosophila2probe)

    y <- subseq(probes[1:12], start=5)
    probes@pool
    y@pool
    object.size(probes)
    object.size(y)

    y0 <- compact(y)
    y0@pool
    object.size(y0)

[Package Biostrings version 2.56.0 Index]