There aren't strict standards imposed on many of the packages in Bioconductor introducing classes, but many other packages extend and impose standards and constraints for given areas/fields/subjects.
If you are considering this route, something like the following could work to determine if introducing metadata features and restrictions is the route to take: libraryVector <- c("MultiAssayExperiment", "SummarizedExperiment", "SingleCellExperiment", "SpatialExperiment") # Try something like this to test your candidate data classes: testClass <- function(libraryName, functionString){ # libraryName : valid class library eval(parse(text = paste0(functionString,"(",libraryName,")"))) } for(libraryName in libraryVector){ testClass(libraryName, "library") testClass(libraryName, "new <- ") metadata(new) # testClass("new", "rm") testClass(libraryName, "detach") } There may be better ways to harmonize and share the data with collaborators as a flat table. MAE has extensive documentation and there is also a cheatsheet provided to help out with tasking. See also: DOI: 10.18129/B9.bioc.MultiAssayExperiment Sean On Tue, Jan 23, 2024 at 5:45 AM Delphine Charif <delphine.cha...@inrae.fr> wrote: > Dear Bioc developer, > > We are developing a package and have used the MultiAssayExperiment class > to manage our data. > We need to impose a particular structure on the slot metadata of the MAE > object (list => named list) > because we havec defined methods that depend on this named list. > Is it good practice to extend the MAE class for the specificity of our > metadata structure or is it better > to define new methods applying to a MAE object (and check the metadata > structure )? > > Thanks in advance, > > > > > > > -------------------------------------- > Delphine CHARIF > +33 (0)1 30 83 35 24 > > IJPB<https://ijpb.versailles.inrae.fr/> - <https://www.inrae.fr/> INRAE< > https://www.inrae.fr/> > RD10 - Route de Saint-Cyr > 78026 Versailles > --------------------------------------- > En temps partiel le mercredi > > > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > _______________________________________________ > Bioc-devel@r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/bioc-devel > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] _______________________________________________ Bioc-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/bioc-devel