# Reading in a text file and adata.obs

**URL:** <https://discourse.scverse.org/t/reading-in-a-text-file-and-adata-obs/1184>\
**Category:** scanpy\
**Created:** [March 3, 2023, 8:16am UTC](https://discourse.scverse.org/t/reading-in-a-text-file-and-adata-obs/1184 "2023-03-03T08:16:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![LinearParadox](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.scverse.org/linearparadox/32/877_2.png) [@LinearParadox](https://discourse.scverse.org/u/LinearParadox)\
**Post date:** [March 3, 2023, 8:16am UTC](https://discourse.scverse.org/t/reading-in-a-text-file-and-adata-obs/1184/1 "2023-03-03T08:16:29Z")

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I’m reading in a text file, however adata.obs and adata.vars have no categories like gene ids. How would I go about adding this?

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**Author:** ![polklin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8dc957/32.png) [@polklin](https://discourse.scverse.org/u/polklin)\
**Post date:** [March 11, 2023, 7:58am UTC](https://discourse.scverse.org/t/reading-in-a-text-file-and-adata-obs/1184/2 "2023-03-11T07:58:50Z")

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Hello @LinearParadox,

You can define your anndata obs and var indices by using:

```python
adata.obs_names = ...
adata.var_names = ...

```

Are the observation names and var names present in your text file ?  
Could you give a subset of your text file (like 5 first lines and rows) ?

Best,  
Paul