Datasets

The basic class for dealing with data is called Dataset. A dataset is a collection of attributes for a particular type of entity, such as a set of grid cells, or a set of households. Each member in this set has the same set of characteristics, such as income of households. In Opus, these characteristics are called attributes.

Conceptually, a dataset is similar to a table. Each attribute is a column. Each row describes the attribute values for one member of the dataset.

Some attributes are read from a data store, we call them primary attributes. Others, computed attributes, are computed by Opus variable definitions. Attributes can be also modified or created by models.

In this section, we describe the main functionality of Dataset. For a list of additional methods, see Appendix D.1.