export_mothur_dist {phyloseq} | R Documentation

## Export a distance object as `.names` and `.dist` files for mothur

### Description

The purpose of this function is to allow a user to easily export a distance object as a pair of files that can be immediately imported by mothur for OTU clustering and related analysis. A distance object can be created in `R` in a number of ways, including via cataloguing the cophentic distances of a tree object.

### Usage

    export_mothur_dist(x, out=NULL, makeTrivialNamesFile=NULL)

### Arguments

`x` | (Required). A `"dist"` object, or a symmetric matrix.
`out` | (Optional). The desired output filename for the `.dist` file, OR left `NULL`, the default, in which case the mothur-formated distance table is returned to `R` standard out.
`makeTrivialNamesFile` | (Optional). Default `NULL`. The desired name of the `.names` file. If left `NULL`, the file name will be a modified version of the `out` argument.

### Value

A character vector of the different cutoff values contained in the file. For a given set of arguments to the `cluster()` command from within mothur, a number of OTU-clustering results are returned in the same list file. The exact cutoff values used by mothur can vary depending on the input data. This simple function returns the cutoffs that were actually included in the mothur output. This an important extra step prior to importing the OTUs with the `import_mothur_otulist()` function.

### Examples

    #
    data(esophagus)
    myDistObject <- as.dist(ape::cophenetic.phylo(phy_tree(esophagus)))
    export_mothur_dist(myDistObject)

[Package phyloseq version 1.38.0 Index]