# longitudinal pairwise-differences : p-metric "shannon\_entropy" instead of "shannon"

**URL:** https://forum.qiime2.org/t/longitudinal-pairwise-differences-p-metric-shannon-entropy-instead-of-shannon/28667
**Category:** Technical Support
**Tags:** longitudinal
**Created:** [December 19, 2023, 3:19pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/longitudinal-pairwise-differences-p-metric-shannon-entropy-instead-of-shannon/28667 "2023-12-19T15:19:40Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![JeremyTournayre](https://forum.qiime2.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/ec9cab/32.png) [@JeremyTournayre](https://forum.qiime2.org/u/JeremyTournayre)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2023, 3:19pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/longitudinal-pairwise-differences-p-metric-shannon-entropy-instead-of-shannon/28667/1 "2023-12-19T15:19:40Z")

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Hello,

Thank you for providing this valuable tool.

I encountered an issue while working with my data generated by the following command:

> qiime diversity alpha --i-table table.qza --p-metric shannon --o-alpha-diversity shannon.qza

I had trouble with the longitudinal pairwise-differences command in  
[https://docs.qiime2.org/2023.9/tutorials/longitudinal/#pairwise-difference-comparisons](https://docs.qiime2.org/2023.9/tutorials/longitudinal/#pairwise-difference-comparisons)

> qiime longitudinal pairwise-differences   
> --m-metadata-file ecam-sample-metadata.tsv   
> --m-metadata-file shannon.qza   
> --p-metric shannon   
> --p-group-column delivery   
> --p-state-column month   
> --p-state-1 0   
> --p-state-2 12   
> --p-individual-id-column studyid   
> --p-replicate-handling random   
> --o-visualization pairwise-differences.qzv

I received the following message:

> Plugin error from longitudinal:
> 
> metric must be a valid metadata or feature table column

I don't have this error with the sample data provided in the documentation.

To resolve this issue, I specified `--p-metric shannon_entropy` instead of `shannon` in the `qiime longitudinal pairwise-differences` command. I would like to confirm if this is an appropriate solution.

Thank you for your assistance, and have a great day!  
Jérémy Tournayre

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### Author: ![timanix](https://forum.qiime2.org/user_avatar/forum.qiime2.org/timanix/32/17879_2.png) [@timanix](https://forum.qiime2.org/u/timanix)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2023, 4:11pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/longitudinal-pairwise-differences-p-metric-shannon-entropy-instead-of-shannon/28667/2 "2023-12-19T16:11:17Z")

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> [@JeremyTournayre](#):
>
> I don't have this error with the sample data provided in the documentation.
> 
> To resolve this issue, I specified `--p-metric shannon_entropy` instead of `shannon` in the `qiime longitudinal pairwise-differences` command. I would like to confirm if this is an appropriate solution.

Yes, that is correct. Sample data was generated using earlier version of Qiime2 in which "shannon\_entropy" was named "shannon".

Best,

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### Author: ![system](https://forum-qiime2-org.s3.dualstack.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/original/3X/2/1/21af5fe23cb6f4579467c66a9ed94e55274ca7bd.svg) [@system](https://forum.qiime2.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [January 19, 2024, 10:11pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/longitudinal-pairwise-differences-p-metric-shannon-entropy-instead-of-shannon/28667/3 "2024-01-19T22:11:44Z")

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