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# Utilities for Developers (`skbio.util`)

This package provides general exception/warning definitions used throughout scikit-bio, as well as various utility functionality, including I/O and unit-testing convenience functions.

## Testing utilities

Common functionality to support testing in skbio.

`get_data_path`(fn[, subfolder]) | Return path to filename `fn` in the data folder.
`assert_ordination_results_equal`(left, right) | Assert that ordination results objects are equal.
`assert_data_frame_almost_equal`(left, right) | Raise AssertionError if `pd.DataFrame` objects are not "almost equal".

## Plotting utilities

`PlottableMixin`() | A plottable object.

## Decorators

`overrides`(interface_class) | Indicate that a member is being overridden from a specific parent class.
`classproperty`(func) | Decorator for class-level properties.
`classonlymethod`(function, /) | Just like classmethod, but it can't be called on an instance.
`deprecated`(ver[, msg, append]) | Mark a function or a method as deprecated.
`aliased`(name[, ver, warn]) | Create an alias for a function or method.
`register_aliases`(cls) | Register aliases of members of a module or class.
`params_aliased`([params]) | Create aliases for parameters of a function or method.

## Miscellaneous utilities

Generally useful functionality that doesn’t fit in more specific locations.

`get_rng`([seed]) | Get a random generator.
`cardinal_to_ordinal`(n) | Return ordinal string version of cardinal int n.
`find_duplicates`(iterable) | Find duplicate elements in an iterable.
`safe_md5`(open_file[, block_size]) | Compute an md5 sum without loading the file into memory.