Add Cells to a Column¶

Populating a Datavyu column with cells is another common task that you can automate with scripts.

Suppose that you want to code behaviors within 1-minute long blocks. Rather than have the coder manually insert each cell, you can write a script that will insert a “block” cell every minute, with the onset set to the correct trial start time.

1. Set up the script and create the Datavyu column you will be working with into a Ruby variable. We’ll call it block here, but you can call it whatever you want to:

   require 'Datavyu_API.rb'
   begin
      # Creste the block column
      block = createColumn("block", "code")
   

2. Create the five cells using a loop.

   Programming 101

   Loops are types of code that tell Ruby to do something multiple times. Let’s break down the for loop from the following example for those who aren’t familiar with loops:

   for i in 0..4
      <do stuff>
   end
   

   Essentially, this says, “let i = 0, <do stuff>, then, for i = 1, <do stuff>. Then again for i = 2, for i = 3, and for i = 4. Once i = 4, stop doing stuff.” The 0..4 represents “from 0 to 4, inclusive”.

   If you wanted to do something ten times, your loop could read for i in 0..9 or for i in 1..10, or for i in 99..108.

   In this case, you will use the value of i to set the onset time of each cell, so having it start at 0 and go to 4 makes sense.

   Loop 5 times from 0 to 4, calculating the onset time to set for each new cell.

   1. Since Datavyu API uses times in milliseconds, convert i (the minute marker) to milliseconds:

      require 'Datavyu_API.rb'
      begin
         block = createColumn("block", "code")
      
         for i in 0..4
            # Calculate the onset time in milliseconds
            time = i * 1000 * 60
      

   2. Then, create the new cell using make_new_cell() and store the cell as a Ruby object. For simplicity, we’ll call it cell:

      require 'Datavyu_API.rb'
      begin
          block = createColumn("block", "code")
      
         for i in 0..4
            time = i * 1000 * 60
      
            # Create a new cell, called ``cell``
            cell = block.make_new_cell()
      

   3. Set the onset of cell to the value of the time variable using change_code(), and end the for loop:

      require 'Datavyu_API.rb'
      begin
          block = createColumn("block", "code")
      
         for i in 0..4
            time = i * 1000 * 60
            cell = block.make_new_cell()
      
            # Set "onset" to the value of the ``time`` variable
            cell.change_code("onset", time)
         end
      

3. Now that the loop is complete, write the changes back to the Datavyu spreadsheet and end the script:

   require 'Datavyu_API.rb'
   begin
       block = createColumn("block", "code")
   
      for i in 0..4
         time = i * 1000 * 60
         cell = block.make_new_cell()
         cell.change_code("onset", time)
      end
   
      # Write change back to the Datavyu spreadsheet
      setColumn(block)
   end