Generic table¶

A generic table is a flexible table type that can represent any tabular data. It is not tied to any specific domain or use case, which makes it suitable for a wide range of custom applications.

Generic tables are also the safe fallback when you read a table that does not match any other table type.

Specifications¶

V1¶

A generic table should include the following metadata fields in the group attributes:

{
    // Generic table metadata
    "type": "generic_table",
    "table_version": "1",
    // Backend metadata
    "backend": "anndata", // the backend used to store the table, e.g. "anndata", "parquet", etc..
    "index_key": "my_id", // Optional. The column used as the row index.
    "index_type": "int" // Optional. Either "int" or "str"
}

Generic tables have no default index. index_key and index_type are written only when you set one, so a generic table saved without an index key carries just type, table_version and backend.