AnnotationDb is the virtual base class for all annotation
packages. It contain a database connection and is meant to be the
parent for a set of classes in the Bioconductor annotation
packages. These classes will provide a means of dispatch for a
widely available set of select methods and thus allow the
easy extraction of data from the annotation packages. select, columns and keys are used together to
extract data from an AnnotationDb object (or any object derived
from the parent class). Examples of classes derived from the
AnnotationDb object include (but are not limited to):
ChipDb, OrgDb GODb, InparanoidDb and
ReactomeDb.
columns shows which kinds of data can be returned for the
AnnotationDb object.
keytypes allows the user to discover which keytypes can be
passed in to select or keys and the keytype
argument.
keys returns keys for the database contained in the
AnnotationDb object . This method is already documented in the
keys manual page but is mentioned again here because it's usage with
select is so intimate. By default it will return the primary
keys for the database, but if used with the keytype argument,
it will return the keys from that keytype.
select will retrieve the data as a data.frame based on
parameters for selected keys and columns and keytype
arguments.
saveDb will take an AnnotationDb object and save the database
to the file specified by the path passed in to the file
argument.
loadDb takes a .sqlite database file as an argument and uses
data in the metadata table of that file to return an AnnotationDb
style object of the appropriate type.
species shows the genus and species label currently attached to
the AnnotationDb objects database.