R: Class to Store Argo Profiler Data

argo-class {oce}

R Documentation

Class to Store Argo Profiler Data

Description

This class stores data from Argo floats.

Details

An argo object may be read with read.argo() or created with as.argo(). Argo data can be gridded to constant pressures with argoGrid() or subsetted with subset,argo-method(). Plots can be made with plot,argo-method(), while summary,argo-method() produces statistical summaries and show produces overviews.

Slots

data: As with all oce objects, the data slot for argo objects is a list containing the main data for the object. The key items stored in this slot include equal-length vectors time, longitude, latitude and equal-dimension matrices pressure, salinity, and temperature.
metadata: As with all oce objects, the metadata slot for argo objects is a list containing information about the data or about the object itself. Examples that are of common interest include id, a vector of ID codes for the profiles, and dataMode, a vector of strings indicating whether the profile is in archived mode ("A"), realtime mode ("R"), or delayed mode ("D").
processingLog: As with all oce objects, the processingLog slot for argo objects is a list with entries describing the creation and evolution of the object. The contents are updated by various oce functions to keep a record of processing steps. Object summaries and processingLogShow() both display the log.

Modifying slot contents

Although the [[<- operator may permit modification of the contents of argo objects (see [[<-,argo-method), it is better to use oceSetData() and oceSetMetadata(), because those functions save an entry in the processingLog that describes the change.

Retrieving slot contents

The full contents of the data and metadata slots of a argo object may be retrieved in the standard R way using slot(). For example slot(o,"data") returns the data slot of an object named o, and similarly slot(o,"metadata") returns the metadata slot.

The slots may also be obtained with the [[,argo-method operator, as e.g. o[["data"]] and o[["metadata"]], respectively.

The [[,argo-method operator can also be used to retrieve items from within the data and metadata slots. For example, o[["temperature"]] can be used to retrieve temperature from an object containing that quantity. The rule is that a named quantity is sought first within the object's metadata slot, with the data slot being checked only if metadata does not contain the item. This [[ method can also be used to get certain derived quantities, if the object contains sufficient information to calculate them. For example, an object that holds (practical) salinity, temperature and pressure, along with longitude and latitude, has sufficient information to compute Absolute Salinity, and so o[["SA"]] will yield the calculated Absolute Salinity.

It is also possible to find items more directly, using oceGetData() and oceGetMetadata(), but neither of these functions can retrieve derived items.

Author(s)

Dan Kelley and Clark Richards