nearest-methods: Finding the nearest genomic range neighbor in a TxDb
In GenomicFeatures: Conveniently import and query gene models

Description Usage Arguments Details Value Author(s) See Also Examples

The distance methods for TxDb objects and subclasses.

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## S4 method for signature 'GenomicRanges,TxDb'
distance(x, y, ignore.strand=FALSE,
    ..., id, type=c("gene", "tx", "exon", "cds"))

`x`	The query GenomicRanges instance.
`y`	For `distance`, a TxDb instance. The `id` is used to extract ranges from the TxDb which are then used to compute the distance from `x`.
`id`	A `character` vector the same length as `x`. The `id` must be identifiers in the TxDb object. `type` indicates what type of identifier `id` is.
`type`	A `character(1)` describing the `id`. Must be one of ‘gene’, ‘tx’, ‘exon’ or ‘cds’.
`ignore.strand`	A `logical` indicating if the strand of the ranges should be ignored. When `TRUE`, strand is set to `'+'`.
`...`	Additional arguments for methods.

distance: Returns the distance for each range in x to the range extracted from the TxDb object y. Values in id are matched to one of ‘gene_id’, ‘tx_id’, ‘exon_id’ or ‘cds_id’ identifiers in the TxDb and the corresponding ranges are extracted. The type argument specifies which identifier is represented in id. The extracted ranges are used in the distance calculation with the ranges in x.

The method returns NA values when the genomic region defined by id cannot be collapsed into a single range (e.g., when a gene spans multiple chromosomes) or if the id is not found in y.

The behavior of distance with respect to zero-width ranges has changed in Bioconductor 2.12. See the man page ?distance in IRanges for details.

For distance, an integer vector of distances between the ranges in x and y.

Valerie Obenchain <vobencha@fhcrc.org>

nearest-methods man page in IRanges.
nearest-methods man page in GenomicRanges.

  ## -----------------------------------------------------------
  ## distance()
  ## -----------------------------------------------------------

  library(TxDb.Dmelanogaster.UCSC.dm3.ensGene)
  txdb <- TxDb.Dmelanogaster.UCSC.dm3.ensGene
  gr <- GRanges(c("chr2L", "chr2R"),
                IRanges(c(100000, 200000),  width=100))
  distance(gr, txdb, id=c("FBgn0259717", "FBgn0261501"), type="gene")
  distance(gr, txdb, id=c("10000", "23000"), type="cds")

  ## The id's must be in the appropriate order with respect to 'x'.
  distance(gr, txdb, id=c("4", "4097"), type="tx")

  ## 'id' "4" is on chr2L and "4097" is on chr2R. 
  transcripts(txdb, filter=list(tx_id=c("4", "4097")))

  ## If we reverse the 'id' the chromosomes are incompatable with gr.
  distance(gr, txdb, id=c("4097", "4"), type="tx")

  ## distance() compares each 'x' to the corresponding 'y'.
  ## If an 'id' is not found in the TxDb 'y' will not 
  ## be the same lenth as 'x' and an error is thrown.
  ## Not run:  
  distance(gr, txdb, id=c("FBgn0000008", "INVALID"), type="gene") ## will fail
  
## End(Not run)