Re: [igraph] Need for advice

[Tom Backer Johnsen]

Gabor

Thanks for your suggestion.  I’ll have to do some thinking about the 
implications, both in respect to the use of a hierarchical and nested list 
structure as well as saving the data in a separate RData file.  Hmm.  
Definitely interesting.  Thanks!

Tom

On 8. May 2014, at 17:24 , Gábor Csárdi <address@hidden> wrote:

> Hi Tom,
> 
> I would create an Rdata file that contains all the data, and a function that 
> you can use to retrieve the graph you want. The graphs can be in some nested 
> named list, grouped by the groups, type of question, etc., in an organization 
> that is most logical for you. The retrieving function could be created with 
> something like this:
> 
> get_graph <- (function() {
>   env <- new.env()
>   load("my-data-file-with-all-graphs.Rdata", envir=env)
>   function(group, at, question) { 
> env[["allgraphs"]][[group]][[at]][[question]] }
> })()
> 
> and then you can get your desired graph via get_graph(group="foo", at=1, 
> question="advice"). 
> 
> The advantage of not using the list directly is that if you change the data 
> format, file name, etc. you don't need to update the code. You can also make 
> the retrieving function more flexible, e.g. to retrieve all time points for a 
> question and group, etc.
> 
> The advantage of the closure trick (i.e. to return a function that will 
> return the data, and then call it immediately) will make sure that you only 
> load the file once from the disk, and that the object itself is hidden.
> 
> Best,
> Gabor
> 
> 
> On Thu, May 8, 2014 at 5:44 AM, Tom Backer Johnsen <address@hidden> wrote:
> Gentlepersons.
> 
> I need some advice on handling a relatively large number of graphs in R.  
> What I have is 128 graphs representing eight groups (each with 8 to 11 
> members) at four times (repeats) where each subject was asked four types of 
> questions.  In addition there are 20 groups which based on the same sample, 
> each with from 3 to 6 members, tested at four points in time with the same 
> set of questions.  So, there are 448 different graphs.
> 
> It was a fairly complex matter of entering the data from the original forms 
> (the data are old, collected in 1967), so I have written a program in Lazarus 
> (a Pascal GUI interface) which takes care of checking and anonymization, 
> where the end product is (at present) a long text file containing the graphs 
> in iGraph matrix format.  Other formats are possible, that is a minor matter. 
>  Each graph has a short descriptive name.
> 
> I would prefer to use parts of iGraph (possibly other SNA packages as well) 
> to analyse the structures using the R / RStudio interface.  I am quite used 
> to handle R, but have very limited experience with iGraph.
> 
> So:  Having to operate with 448 different files seems to be cumbersome, but 
> of course possible.  I would however prefer to have all the graphs in one 
> database/file.  I seem to remember having seen a reference to SQLite in this 
> list, but are there better/simpler alternatives?  How does one extract single 
> graphs from the database?  It would also be an advantage if the data base 
> could be generated by the program written in Lazarus / Free Pascal and then 
> accessed by R, but that transfer could be handled in several ways.
> 
> Any suggestions?
> 
> I am using a Mac OS X computer, where something like Wine may be installed to 
> be able to run Windows programs.
> 
> Tom Backer Johnsen
> Email: backer(at)psych.uib.no
> 
> 
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Tom Backer Johnsen
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