********
Overview
********

DataMatrix is a Python module that tries to emulate the behavior of the
``data.frame`` data structure of the R programming language. Data.frames are
essentially tables that can be queried either by row or columns, or, in the
presence of a header, even by column names.

DataMatrix emulates this behavior by reading a text file (or file-like object), and returning an object where rows and columns can be accessed by a variety of methods.

Row names are a way to identify a row precisely (R uses it because some of its
operations return the names of the rows rather than their values) and are either
read from a specific column or a progressive numeric value otherwise.

DataMatrix objects can be queried with a dictionary-like syntax (e.g.,
``matrix["column name"]``), or by other methods.