Proposed new column in measurementData.tsv: datapointId

[dlill]

Which problem would you like to address? Please describe. A unique identifier for each data point (i.e. row) in measurementData. This way, one can

• Document easily if one excluded certain data points
• Discuss with collaborators about specific data points which raised questions
• Have an additional discerning factor when merging/using multiple measurementData files
• Useful in visualization. Annotating plots, one can quickly pin point problems in the data set

Describe the solution you would like Add a new optional character column called datapointId in measurementData. This can be coded manually by the user. It could simply be the respective row number, but it can also be a string like datasetId_rownumber. Each entry must be unique

Describe alternatives you have considered Location: None. This is the only place where such an addition makes sense. Structure: One could restrict the format of datapointId more tightly

Additional context I guess it won't break much legacy code

[dweindl]

Hi @dlill, thanks for your suggestion. I see the potential applications. However, as long as there is nothing within PEtab that uses this information directly, I would not make it part of the format specification. But maybe there are other opinions... Nevertheless, it's already possible to add arbitrary additional columns in the measurement files.

[dlill]

Okay, then I read the documentation not carefully enough - I already thought that datasetId and replicateId were part of the standard, but now I see that they also rather belong to the visualization functionality. Could you include a column ... for additional non-standard columns in the documentation to emphasize that other columns may be added?

[dweindl]

https://petab.readthedocs.io/en/stable/documentation_data_format.html#measurement-table already states:

Additional (non-standard) columns may be added.

[dlill]

Sure, it's just for the emphasis - this detail is easily missed, because the eye is naturally guided to the column description.