On Tue, Aug 21, 2012 at 4:46 PM, Ted Goldstein <ted@soe.ucsc.edu> wrote:

I am developing several tools that will need to read and write multiple data files at once. For example, Eisen Cluster produces a heatmap which consists of three files: a .cdt file, .atr file and a gtr file which are the underlying heatmap and the array tree and the gene tree. All three files need to be kept together. I guess I could wrap them in a zip file and pack and unpack them. The heatmap is not just a view only object. Some tools, such as cuttree, would extract one tree and then aggregate genes (or arrays) below a certain depth and create a new trio of files. Is there support for (or plans for creating) any aggregate data types?

Hi Ted, There is support for composite datatypes, so this should be possible. http://wiki.g2.bx.psu.edu/Admin/Datatypes/Composite%20Datatypes This kind of discussion is normally directed to the galaxy-dev list (CC'd) Peter