rds2py

rds2py allows you to read and write R's native RDS and RData files directly in Python. Beyond standard R types, it provides integration with the BiocPy ecosystem, allowing you to easily roundtrip complex S4 data structures like SummarizedExperiment, SingleCellExperiment, and GenomicRanges. For more details, check out rds2cpp library.

Installation

Package is published to PyPI

pip install rds2py

To enable automatic conversion to Bioconductor/BiocPy classes, make sure to install the optional dependencies:

pip install rds2py[optional]

Quickstart

1. Reading RDS and RData files

Reading an RDS or RData file is as simple as a single function call. rds2py automatically detects and maps known R/Bioconductor classes to their Python equivalents:

from rds2py import read_rds, read_rda

# Read an RDS file (returns a Python/BiocPy object or dict)
data = read_rds("path/to/file.rds")

# Read objects from an RData workspace file (returns a dictionary of objects)
workspace = read_rda("path/to/workspace.rda")

If rds2py encounters an S4 class or complex R structure it doesn't have a parser registered for, it falls back to returning a dictionary so you don't lose any data.

2. Saving to RDS and RData files

You can serialize Python objects back to RDS or RData formats. This includes NumPy arrays, SciPy sparse matrices, standard dictionaries/lists, and BiocPy objects:

import numpy as np
from rds2py import write_rds, write_rda
from genomicranges import GenomicRanges
from iranges import IRanges

# 1. Write an atomic NumPy array
write_rds(np.array([10, 20, 30], dtype=np.int32), "array.rds")

# 2. Write a complex Bioconductor GenomicRanges object
gr = GenomicRanges(seqnames=["chr1", "chr2"], ranges=IRanges(start=[1, 100], width=[10, 50]), strand=["+", "-"])
write_rds(gr, "genomic_ranges.rds")

# 3. Write multiple Python objects into a single RData workspace
objects = {"my_array": np.array([1.1, 2.2, 3.3]), "my_granges": gr}
write_rda(objects, "workspace.rda")

3. Custom Extensions

If you have custom S4 representations or class mapping needs, you can parse the raw RDS structure into Python dictionary representations using parse_rds/parse_rda and apply your custom deserializers:

from rds2py import parse_rds
from rds2py.read_granges import read_genomic_ranges

# 1. Parse into a raw dictionary representation of the RDS tree
raw_dict = parse_rds("path/to/file.rds")
print(raw_dict.keys())  # ['type', 'class_name', 'attributes', 'data', ...]

# 2. Build or invoke custom parser logic
if raw_dict.get("class_name") == "GRanges":
    gr = read_genomic_ranges(raw_dict)
    print(gr)

For writing custom objects, you can register your classes to rds2py's serialization registry using the save_rds singledispatch generic:

from rds2py.generics import save_rds


class MyCustomClass:
    def __init__(self, value):
        self.value = value


@save_rds.register(MyCustomClass)
def _serialize_custom(x: MyCustomClass, path=None):
    # Construct the raw RDS dictionary representation expected by rds2cpp
    converted = {
        "type": "integer",
        "data": [x.value],
        "attributes": {"class": {"type": "string", "data": ["MyCustomRClass"]}},
    }

    # Optionally save if path is provided, otherwise return representation
    if path is not None:
        from rds2py.lib_rds_parser import write_rds as write_rds_native

        write_rds_native(converted, path)
    return converted

Type Conversion Reference

The table below describes how core R types are mapped to Python/NumPy/SciPy counterparts:

R Type / Class	Python / NumPy / SciPy Counterpart
numeric	numpy.ndarray (float64)
integer	numpy.ndarray (int32)
logical	numpy.ndarray (bool)
character	list of str
factor	list / representation levels
matrix (dense)	numpy.ndarray
dgCMatrix (Column-sparse)	scipy.sparse.csc_matrix
dgRMatrix (Row-sparse)	scipy.sparse.csr_matrix
data.frame / DFrame	biocframe.BiocFrame

Supported Bioconductor Classes

When rds2py[optional] is installed, the package fully translates R/S4 classes to their BiocPy equivalents:

• GenomicRanges / GRanges <-> genomicranges.GenomicRanges
• GenomicRangesList / GRangesList <-> genomicranges.CompressedGenomicRangesList
• SummarizedExperiment <-> summarizedexperiment.SummarizedExperiment
• RangedSummarizedExperiment <-> summarizedexperiment.RangedSummarizedExperiment
• SingleCellExperiment <-> singlecellexperiment.SingleCellExperiment
• MultiAssayExperiment <-> multiassayexperiment.MultiAssayExperiment

---

Developer Notes

• rds2py uses pybind11 to bind the core C++ rds2cpp library. Compiling from source requires a compatible C++ compiler.
• Tests can be run via tox or directly using pytest.

Note

This project has been set up using PyScaffold 4.5. For details and usage information on PyScaffold see https://pyscaffold.org/.