timing_tool.py and excel?

AFNI Message Board
1

Hi Rick,

I am getting ready to analyze a study where the ISI and onset timing files are unique to each subject (totally randomized). I am going to direct my preprocessing script to each subjects txt files using {$subj} in the proc. But I am dreading manually creating each subjects files in gedit on Dartmouth’s server from the Excel files on my local computer, especially because copy and pasting doesn’t work from Excel to gedit. Is there are function that can automatic this?

Thanks,
Daisy

2

Hi Daisy,

Where does timing_tool.py come into play here? Was it
used to create the original timing files? Did the timing
then go through presentation software, and now the timing
is not exactly the same, and is stored in Excel sheets?

Actually, to simplify this a bit (“this” being getting
an understanding from your head into mine), would it be
possible to send me one excel timing file via email?
Hopefully then I would know what you are working with,
and could be more explicit in responses.

But in any case, typing in the numbers is certainly not
desirable, being both error prone and a waste of your
time. It should not be difficult to automate.

One basic option is to export the xml data in tsv format
(tab separated … uh … values??). You would likely
be able to read that file directly with gedit.

  • rick
3

Hi Rick,

Actually, I didn’t use timing_tool.py yet, but thought there may be capability within the program to assist here, which is why I included it in the title.

At the moment, I am away from my lab computer with the timing files, but it is actually just a simple .xls Excel file that is output based on my Python script (which is executed for stimulus presentation via PsychoPy) for every single subject. There are simple headers with no spaces, such as “start_cue_onset” or “preISI1” for every single subject. They are on my local computer, and I analyze (in AFNI of course :)) on the Cluster through my program. As you said, I am trying to avoid manually entering every subjects’ timing into a .txt file (via gedit) in order to reduce error and save time. So do you think if I save each subjects’ output Excel in .tsv format then scp those to the folder with my data on the Cluster, I can open them with gedit, and more importantly, read those into my afni_proc.py script for each subject?

Thanks,
Daisy