Provided by: samtools_1.16.1-1_amd64 
NAME
samtools - Utilities for the Sequence Alignment/Map (SAM) format
SYNOPSIS
samtools addreplacerg -r 'ID:fish' -r 'LB:1334' -r 'SM:alpha' -o output.bam input.bam
samtools ampliconclip -b bed.file input.bam
samtools ampliconstats primers.bed in.bam
samtools bedcov aln.sorted.bam
samtools calmd in.sorted.bam ref.fasta
samtools cat out.bam in1.bam in2.bam in3.bam
samtools collate -o aln.name_collated.bam aln.sorted.bam
samtools consensus -o out.fasta in.bam
samtools coverage aln.sorted.bam
samtools depad input.bam
samtools depth aln.sorted.bam
samtools dict -a GRCh38 -s "Homo sapiens" ref.fasta
samtools faidx ref.fasta
samtools fasta input.bam > output.fasta
samtools fastq input.bam > output.fastq
samtools fixmate in.namesorted.sam out.bam
samtools flags PAIRED,UNMAP,MUNMAP
samtools flagstat aln.sorted.bam
samtools fqidx ref.fastq
samtools head in.bam
samtools idxstats aln.sorted.bam
samtools import input.fastq > output.bam
samtools index aln.sorted.bam
samtools markdup in.algnsorted.bam out.bam
samtools merge out.bam in1.bam in2.bam in3.bam
samtools mpileup -C50 -f ref.fasta -r chr3:1,000-2,000 in1.bam in2.bam
samtools phase input.bam
samtools quickcheck in1.bam in2.cram
samtools reference -o ref.fa in.cram
samtools reheader in.header.sam in.bam > out.bam
samtools samples input.bam
samtools sort -T /tmp/aln.sorted -o aln.sorted.bam aln.bam
samtools split merged.bam
samtools stats aln.sorted.bam
samtools targetcut input.bam
samtools tview aln.sorted.bam ref.fasta
samtools view -bt ref_list.txt -o aln.bam aln.sam.gz
DESCRIPTION
Samtools is a set of utilities that manipulate alignments in the SAM (Sequence
Alignment/Map), BAM, and CRAM formats. It converts between the formats, does sorting,
merging and indexing, and can retrieve reads in any regions swiftly.
Samtools is designed to work on a stream. It regards an input file `-' as the standard
input (stdin) and an output file `-' as the standard output (stdout). Several commands can
thus be combined with Unix pipes. Samtools always output warning and error messages to the
standard error output (stderr).
Samtools is also able to open files on remote FTP or HTTP(S) servers if the file name
starts with `ftp://', `http://', etc. Samtools checks the current working directory for
the index file and will download the index upon absence. Samtools does not retrieve the
entire alignment file unless it is asked to do so.
If an index is needed, samtools looks for the index suffix appended to the filename, and
if that isn't found it tries again without the filename suffix (for example in.bam.bai
followed by in.bai). However if an index is in a completely different location or has a
different name, both the main data filename and index filename can be pasted together with
##idx##. For example /data/in.bam##idx##/indices/in.bam.bai may be used to explicitly
indicate where the data and index files reside.
COMMANDS
Each command has its own man page which can be viewed using e.g. man samtools-view or with
a recent GNU man using man samtools view. Below we have a brief summary of syntax and
sub-command description.
Options common to all sub-commands are documented below in the GLOBAL COMMAND OPTIONS
section.
view samtools view [options] in.sam|in.bam|in.cram [region...]
With no options or regions specified, prints all alignments in the specified
input alignment file (in SAM, BAM, or CRAM format) to standard output in SAM
format (with no header by default).
You may specify one or more space-separated region specifications after the
input filename to restrict output to only those alignments which overlap the
specified region(s). Use of region specifications requires a coordinate-sorted
and indexed input file.
Options exist to change the output format from SAM to BAM or CRAM, so this
command also acts as a file format conversion utility.
tview samtools tview [-p chr:pos] [-s STR] [-d display] <in.sorted.bam> [ref.fasta]
Text alignment viewer (based on the ncurses library). In the viewer, press `?'
for help and press `g' to check the alignment start from a region in the format
like `chr10:10,000,000' or `=10,000,000' when viewing the same reference
sequence.
quickcheck
samtools quickcheck [options] in.sam|in.bam|in.cram [ ... ]
Quickly check that input files appear to be intact. Checks that beginning of the
file contains a valid header (all formats) containing at least one target
sequence and then seeks to the end of the file and checks that an end-of-file
(EOF) is present and intact (BAM only).
Data in the middle of the file is not read since that would be much more time
consuming, so please note that this command will not detect internal corruption,
but is useful for testing that files are not truncated before performing more
intensive tasks on them.
This command will exit with a non-zero exit code if any input files don't have a
valid header or are missing an EOF block. Otherwise it will exit successfully
(with a zero exit code).
head samtools head [options] in.sam|in.bam|in.cram
Prints the input file's headers and optionally also its first few alignment
records. This command always displays the headers as they are in the file, never
adding an extra @PG header itself.
index samtools index [-bc] [-m INT] aln.sam.gz|aln.bam|aln.cram [out.index]
Index a coordinate-sorted SAM, BAM or CRAM file for fast random access. Note
for SAM this only works if the file has been BGZF compressed first. (Starting
from Samtools 1.16, this command can also be given several alignment filenames,
which are indexed individually.)
This index is needed when region arguments are used to limit samtools view and
similar commands to particular regions of interest.
If an output filename is given, the index file will be written to out.index.
Otherwise, for a CRAM file aln.cram, index file aln.cram.crai will be created;
for a BAM or SAM file aln.bam, either aln.bam.bai or aln.bam.csi will be
created, depending on the index format selected.
sort samtools sort [-l level] [-m maxMem] [-o out.bam] [-O format] [-n] [-t tag] [-T
tmpprefix] [-@ threads] [in.sam|in.bam|in.cram]
Sort alignments by leftmost coordinates, or by read name when -n is used. An
appropriate @HD-SO sort order header tag will be added or an existing one
updated if necessary.
The sorted output is written to standard output by default, or to the specified
file (out.bam) when -o is used. This command will also create temporary files
tmpprefix.%d.bam as needed when the entire alignment data cannot fit into memory
(as controlled via the -m option).
Consider using samtools collate instead if you need name collated data without a
full lexicographical sort.
Note that if the sorted output file is to be indexed with samtools index, the
default coordinate sort must be used. Thus the -n and -t options are
incompatible with samtools index.
collate samtools collate [options] in.sam|in.bam|in.cram [<prefix>]
Shuffles and groups reads together by their names. A faster alternative to a
full query name sort, collate ensures that reads of the same name are grouped
together in contiguous groups, but doesn't make any guarantees about the order
of read names between groups.
The output from this command should be suitable for any operation that requires
all reads from the same template to be grouped together.
idxstats samtools idxstats in.sam|in.bam|in.cram
Retrieve and print stats in the index file corresponding to the input file.
Before calling idxstats, the input BAM file should be indexed by samtools index.
If run on a SAM or CRAM file or an unindexed BAM file, this command will still
produce the same summary statistics, but does so by reading through the entire
file. This is far slower than using the BAM indices.
The output is TAB-delimited with each line consisting of reference sequence
name, sequence length, # mapped reads and # unmapped reads. It is written to
stdout.
flagstat samtools flagstat in.sam|in.bam|in.cram
Does a full pass through the input file to calculate and print statistics to
stdout.
Provides counts for each of 13 categories based primarily on bit flags in the
FLAG field. Each category in the output is broken down into QC pass and QC fail,
which is presented as "#PASS + #FAIL" followed by a description of the category.
flags samtools flags INT|STR[,...]
Convert between textual and numeric flag representation.
FLAGS:
0x1 PAIRED paired-end (or multiple-segment) sequencing technology
0x2 PROPER_PAIR each segment properly aligned according to the aligner
0x4 UNMAP segment unmapped
0x8 MUNMAP next segment in the template unmapped
0x10 REVERSE SEQ is reverse complemented
0x20 MREVERSE SEQ of the next segment in the template is reverse complemented
0x40 READ1 the first segment in the template
0x80 READ2 the last segment in the template
0x100 SECONDARY secondary alignment
0x200 QCFAIL not passing quality controls
0x400 DUP PCR or optical duplicate
0x800 SUPPLEMENTARY supplementary alignment
stats samtools stats [options] in.sam|in.bam|in.cram [region...]
samtools stats collects statistics from BAM files and outputs in a text format.
The output can be visualized graphically using plot-bamstats.
bedcov samtools bedcov [options] region.bed in1.sam|in1.bam|in1.cram[...]
Reports the total read base count (i.e. the sum of per base read depths) for
each genomic region specified in the supplied BED file. The regions are output
as they appear in the BED file and are 0-based. Counts for each alignment file
supplied are reported in separate columns.
depth samtools depth [options] [in1.sam|in1.bam|in1.cram [in2.sam|in2.bam|in2.cram]
[...]]
Computes the read depth at each position or region.
ampliconstats
samtools ampliconstats [options] primers.bed in.sam|in.bam|in.cram[...]
samtools ampliconstats collects statistics from one or more input alignment
files and produces tables in text format. The output can be visualized
graphically using plot-ampliconstats.
The alignment files should have previously been clipped of primer sequence, for
example by samtools ampliconclip and the sites of these primers should be
specified as a bed file in the arguments.
mpileup samtools mpileup [-EB] [-C capQcoef] [-r reg] [-f in.fa] [-l list] [-Q minBaseQ]
[-q minMapQ] in.bam [in2.bam [...]]
Generate textual pileup for one or multiple BAM files. For VCF and BCF output,
please use the bcftools mpileup command instead. Alignment records are grouped
by sample (SM) identifiers in @RG header lines. If sample identifiers are
absent, each input file is regarded as one sample.
See the samtools-mpileup man page for a description of the pileup format and
options.
consensus samtools consensus [options] in.bam
Generate consensus from a SAM, BAM or CRAM file based on the contents of the
alignment records. The consensus is written either as FASTA, FASTQ, or a pileup
oriented format.
The default output for FASTA and FASTQ formats include one base per non-gap
consensus. Hence insertions with respect to the aligned reference will be
included and deletions removed. This behaviour can be adjusted.
Two consensus calling algorithms are offered. The default computes a
heterozygous consensus in a Bayesian manner, derived from the "Gap5" consensus
algorithm. A simpler base frequency counting method is also available.
reference samtools reference [options] in.bam
Generate a reference from a SAM, BAM or CRAM file based on the contents of the
SEQuence field and the MD:Z: auxiliary tags, or from the embedded reference
blocks within a CRAM file (provided it was constructed using the embed_ref=1
option).
coverage samtools coverage [options] [in1.sam|in1.bam|in1.cram [in2.sam|in2.bam|in2.cram]
[...]]
Produces a histogram or table of coverage per chromosome.
merge samtools merge [-nur1f] [-h inh.sam] [-t tag] [-R reg] [-b list] out.bam in1.bam
[in2.bam in3.bam ... inN.bam]
Merge multiple sorted alignment files, producing a single sorted output file
that contains all the input records and maintains the existing sort order.
If -h is specified the @SQ headers of input files will be merged into the
specified header, otherwise they will be merged into a composite header created
from the input headers. If the @SQ headers differ in order this may require the
output file to be re-sorted after merge.
The ordering of the records in the input files must match the usage of the -n
and -t command-line options. If they do not, the output order will be
undefined. See sort for information about record ordering.
split samtools split [options] merged.sam|merged.bam|merged.cram
Splits a file by read group, producing one or more output files matching a
common prefix (by default based on the input filename) each containing one read-
group.
cat samtools cat [-b list] [-h header.sam] [-o out.bam] in1.bam in2.bam [ ... ]
Concatenate BAMs or CRAMs. Although this works on either BAM or CRAM, all input
files must be the same format as each other. The sequence dictionary of each
input file must be identical, although this command does not check this. This
command uses a similar trick to reheader which enables fast BAM concatenation.
import samtools import [options] in.fastq [ ... ]
Converts one or more FASTQ files to unaligned SAM, BAM or CRAM. These formats
offer a richer capability of tracking sample meta-data via the SAM header and
per-read meta-data via the auxiliary tags. The fastq command may be used to
reverse this conversion.
fastq/a samtools fastq [options] in.bam
samtools fasta [options] in.bam
Converts a BAM or CRAM into either FASTQ or FASTA format depending on the
command invoked. The files will be automatically compressed if the file names
have a .gz or .bgzf extension.
The input to this program must be collated by name. Use samtools collate or
samtools sort -n to ensure this.
faidx samtools faidx <ref.fasta> [region1 [...]]
Index reference sequence in the FASTA format or extract subsequence from indexed
reference sequence. If no region is specified, faidx will index the file and
create <ref.fasta>.fai on the disk. If regions are specified, the subsequences
will be retrieved and printed to stdout in the FASTA format.
The input file can be compressed in the BGZF format.
FASTQ files can be read and indexed by this command. Without using --fastq any
extracted subsequence will be in FASTA format.
fqidx samtools fqidx <ref.fastq> [region1 [...]]
Index reference sequence in the FASTQ format or extract subsequence from indexed
reference sequence. If no region is specified, fqidx will index the file and
create <ref.fastq>.fai on the disk. If regions are specified, the subsequences
will be retrieved and printed to stdout in the FASTQ format.
The input file can be compressed in the BGZF format.
samtools fqidx should only be used on fastq files with a small number of
entries. Trying to use it on a file containing millions of short sequencing
reads will produce an index that is almost as big as the original file, and
searches using the index will be very slow and use a lot of memory.
dict samtools dict ref.fasta|ref.fasta.gz
Create a sequence dictionary file from a fasta file.
calmd samtools calmd [-Eeubr] [-C capQcoef] aln.bam ref.fasta
Generate the MD tag. If the MD tag is already present, this command will give a
warning if the MD tag generated is different from the existing tag. Output SAM
by default.
Calmd can also read and write CRAM files although in most cases it is pointless
as CRAM recalculates MD and NM tags on the fly. The one exception to this case
is where both input and output CRAM files have been / are being created with the
no_ref option.
fixmate samtools fixmate [-rpcm] [-O format] in.nameSrt.bam out.bam
Fill in mate coordinates, ISIZE and mate related flags from a name-sorted
alignment.
markdup samtools markdup [-l length] [-r] [-s] [-T] [-S] in.algsort.bam out.bam
Mark duplicate alignments from a coordinate sorted file that has been run
through samtools fixmate with the -m option. This program relies on the MC and
ms tags that fixmate provides.
rmdup samtools rmdup [-sS] <input.srt.bam> <out.bam>
This command is obsolete. Use markdup instead.
addreplacerg
samtools addreplacerg [-r rg-line | -R rg-ID] [-m mode] [-l level] [-o out.bam]
in.bam
Adds or replaces read group tags in a file.
reheader samtools reheader [-iP] in.header.sam in.bam
Replace the header in in.bam with the header in in.header.sam. This command is
much faster than replacing the header with a BAM→SAM→BAM conversion.
By default this command outputs the BAM or CRAM file to standard output
(stdout), but for CRAM format files it has the option to perform an in-place
edit, both reading and writing to the same file. No validity checking is
performed on the header, nor that it is suitable to use with the sequence data
itself.
targetcut samtools targetcut [-Q minBaseQ] [-i inPenalty] [-0 em0] [-1 em1] [-2 em2] [-f
ref] in.bam
This command identifies target regions by examining the continuity of read
depth, computes haploid consensus sequences of targets and outputs a SAM with
each sequence corresponding to a target. When option -f is in use, BAQ will be
applied. This command is only designed for cutting fosmid clones from fosmid
pool sequencing [Ref. Kitzman et al. (2010)].
phase samtools phase [-AF] [-k len] [-b prefix] [-q minLOD] [-Q minBaseQ] in.bam
Call and phase heterozygous SNPs.
depad samtools depad [-SsCu1] [-T ref.fa] [-o output] in.bam
Converts a BAM aligned against a padded reference to a BAM aligned against the
depadded reference. The padded reference may contain verbatim "*" bases in it,
but "*" bases are also counted in the reference numbering. This means that a
sequence base-call aligned against a reference "*" is considered to be a cigar
match ("M" or "X") operator (if the base-call is "A", "C", "G" or "T"). After
depadding the reference "*" bases are deleted and such aligned sequence base-
calls become insertions. Similarly transformations apply for deletions and
padding cigar operations.
ampliconclip
samtools ampliconclip [-o out.file] [-f stat.file] [--soft-clip] [--hard-clip]
[--both-ends] [--strand] [--clipped] [--fail] [--no-PG] -b bed.file in.file
Clip reads in a SAM compatible file based on data from a BED file.
samples samtools samples [-o out.file] [-i] [-T TAG] [-f refs.fasta] [-F refs_list] [-X]
Prints the samples from alignment files
SAMTOOLS OPTIONS
These are options that are passed after the samtools command, before any sub-command is
specified.
help, --help
Display a brief usage message listing the samtools commands available. If the name
of a command is also given, e.g., samtools help view, the detailed usage message
for that particular command is displayed.
--version
Display the version numbers and copyright information for samtools and the
important libraries used by samtools.
--version-only
Display the full samtools version number in a machine-readable format.
GLOBAL COMMAND OPTIONS
Several long-options are shared between multiple samtools sub-commands: --input-fmt,
--input-fmt-option, --output-fmt, --output-fmt-option, --reference, --write-index, and
--verbosity. The input format is typically auto-detected so specifying the format is
usually unnecessary and the option is included for completeness. Note that not all
subcommands have all options. Consult the subcommand help for more details.
Format strings recognised are "sam", "sam.gz", "bam" and "cram". They may be followed by
a comma separated list of options as key or key=value. See below for examples.
The fmt-option arguments accept either a single option or option=value. Note that some
options only work on some file formats and only on read or write streams. If value is
unspecified for a boolean option, the value is assumed to be 1. The valid options are as
follows.
level=INT
Output only. Specifies the compression level from 1 to 9, or 0 for uncompressed. If
the output format is SAM, this also enables BGZF compression, otherwise SAM defaults
to uncompressed.
nthreads=INT
Specifies the number of threads to use during encoding and/or decoding. For BAM this
will be encoding only. In CRAM the threads are dynamically shared between encoder and
decoder.
filter=STRING
Apply filter STRING to all incoming records, rejecting any that do not satisfy the
expression. See the FILTER EXPRESSIONS section below for specifics.
reference=fasta_file
Specifies a FASTA reference file for use in CRAM encoding or decoding. It usually is
not required for decoding except in the situation of the MD5 not being obtainable via
the REF_PATH or REF_CACHE environment variables.
decode_md=0|1
CRAM input only; defaults to 1 (on). CRAM does not typically store MD and NM tags,
preferring to generate them on the fly. When this option is 0 missing MD, NM tags
will not be generated. It can be particularly useful when combined with a file
encoded using store_md=1 and store_nm=1.
store_md=0|1
CRAM output only; defaults to 0 (off). CRAM normally only stores MD tags when the
reference is unknown and lets the decoder generate these values on-the-fly (see
decode_md).
store_nm=0|1
CRAM output only; defaults to 0 (off). CRAM normally only stores NM tags when the
reference is unknown and lets the decoder generate these values on-the-fly (see
decode_md).
ignore_md5=0|1
CRAM input only; defaults to 0 (off). When enabled, md5 checksum errors on the
reference sequence and block checksum errors within CRAM are ignored. Use of this
option is strongly discouraged.
required_fields=bit-field
CRAM input only; specifies which SAM columns need to be populated. By default all
fields are used. Limiting the decode to specific columns can have significant
performance gains. The bit-field is a numerical value constructed from the following
table.
0x1 SAM_QNAME
0x2 SAM_FLAG
0x4 SAM_RNAME
0x8 SAM_POS
0x10 SAM_MAPQ
0x20 SAM_CIGAR
0x40 SAM_RNEXT
0x80 SAM_PNEXT
0x100 SAM_TLEN
0x200 SAM_SEQ
0x400 SAM_QUAL
0x800 SAM_AUX
0x1000 SAM_RGAUX
name_prefix=string
CRAM input only; defaults to output filename. Any sequences with auto-generated read
names will use string as the name prefix.
multi_seq_per_slice=0|1
CRAM output only; defaults to 0 (off). By default CRAM generates one container per
reference sequence, except in the case of many small references (such as a fragmented
assembly).
version=major.minor
CRAM output only. Specifies the CRAM version number. Acceptable values are "2.1" and
"3.0".
seqs_per_slice=INT
CRAM output only; defaults to 10000.
slices_per_container=INT
CRAM output only; defaults to 1. The effect of having multiple slices per container
is to share the compression header block between multiple slices. This is unlikely to
have any significant impact unless the number of sequences per slice is reduced.
(Together these two options control the granularity of random access.)
embed_ref=0|1
CRAM output only; defaults to 0 (off). If 1, this will store portions of the
reference sequence in each slice, permitting decode without having requiring an
external copy of the reference sequence.
no_ref=0|1
CRAM output only; defaults to 0 (off). If 1, sequences will be stored verbatim with
no reference encoding. This can be useful if no reference is available for the file.
use_bzip2=0|1
CRAM output only; defaults to 0 (off). Permits use of bzip2 in CRAM block
compression.
use_lzma=0|1
CRAM output only; defaults to 0 (off). Permits use of lzma in CRAM block compression.
use_fqz=0|1
CRAM ≥ 3.1 output only; enables and disables the fqzcomp quality compression method.
This is on by default for version 3.1 and above only when the small and archive
profiles are in use.
use_tok=0|1
CRAM ≥ 3.1 output only; enables and disables the namne tokeniser compression method.
This is on by default for version 3.1 and above.
lossy_names=0|1
CRAM output only; defaults to 0 (off). If 1, templates with all members within the
same CRAM slice will have their read names removed. New names will be automatically
generated during decoding. Also see the name_prefix option.
fast, normal, small, archive
CRAM output only. Set the CRAM compression profile. This is a simplified way of
setting many output options at once. It changes the following options according to
the profile in use. The "normal" profile is the default.
Option fast normal small archive
level 1 5 6 7
use_bzip2 off off on on
use_lzma off off off on if level>7
use_tok(*) off on on on
use_fqz(*) off off on on
use_arith(*) off off off on
seqs_per_slice 10000 10000 25000 100000
(*) use_tok, use_fqz and use_arith are only enabled for CRAM version 3.1 and above.
The level listed is only the default value, and will not be set if it has been
explicitly changed already. Additionally bases_per_slice is set to 500*seqs_per_slice
unless previously explicitly set.
For example:
samtools view --input-fmt-option decode_md=0
--output-fmt cram,version=3.0 --output-fmt-option embed_ref
--output-fmt-option seqs_per_slice=2000 -o foo.cram foo.bam
samtools view -O cram,small -o bar.cram bar.bam
The --write-index option enables automatic index creation while writing out BAM, CRAM or
bgzf SAM files. Note to get compressed SAM as the output format you need to manually
request a compression level, otherwise all SAM files are uncompressed. By default SAM and
BAM will use CSI indices while CRAM will use CRAI indices. If you need to create BAI
indices note that it is possible to specify the name of the index being written to, and
hence the format, by using the filename##idx##indexname notation.
For example: to convert a BAM to a compressed SAM with CSI indexing:
samtools view -h -O sam,level=6 --write-index in.bam -o out.sam.gz
To convert a SAM to a compressed BAM using BAI indexing:
samtools view --write-index in.sam -o out.bam##idx##out.bam.bai
The --verbosity INT option sets the verbosity level for samtools and HTSlib. The default
is 3 (HTS_LOG_WARNING); 2 reduces warning messages and 0 or 1 also reduces some error
messages, while values greater than 3 produce increasing numbers of additional warnings
and logging messages.
REFERENCE SEQUENCES
The CRAM format requires use of a reference sequence for both reading and writing.
When reading a CRAM the @SQ headers are interrogated to identify the reference sequence
MD5sum (M5: tag) and the local reference sequence filename (UR: tag). Note that http://
and ftp:// based URLs in the UR: field are not used, but local fasta filenames (with or
without file://) can be used.
To create a CRAM the @SQ headers will also be read to identify the reference sequences,
but M5: and UR: tags may not be present. In this case the -T and -t options of samtools
view may be used to specify the fasta or fasta.fai filenames respectively (provided the
.fasta.fai file is also backed up by a .fasta file).
The search order to obtain a reference is:
1. Use any local file specified by the command line options (eg -T).
2. Look for MD5 via REF_CACHE environment variable.
3. Look for MD5 in each element of the REF_PATH environment variable.
4. Look for a local file listed in the UR: header tag.
FILTER EXPRESSIONS
Filter expressions are used as an on-the-fly checking of incoming SAM, BAM or CRAM
records, discarding records that do not match the specified expression.
The language used is primarily C style, but with a few differences in the precedence rules
for bit operators and the inclusion of regular expression matching.
The operator precedence, from strongest binding to weakest, is:
Grouping (, ) E.g. "(1+2)*3"
Values: literals, vars Numbers, strings and variables
Unary ops: +, -, !, ~ E.g. -10 +10, !10 (not), ~5 (bit not)
Math ops: *, /, % Multiply, division and (integer) modulo
Math ops: +, - Addition / subtraction
Bit-wise: & Integer AND
Bit-wise ^ Integer XOR
Bit-wise | Integer OR
Conditionals: >, >=, <, <=
Equality: ==, !=, =~, !~ =~ and !~ match regular expressions
Boolean: &&, || Logical AND / OR
Expressions are computed using floating point mathematics, so "10 / 4" evaluates to 2.5
rather than 2. They may be written as integers in decimal or "0x" plus hexadecimal, and
floating point with or without exponents.However operations that require integers first do
an implicit type conversion, so "7.9 % 5" is 2 and "7.9 & 4.1" is equivalent to "7 & 4",
which is 4. Strings are always specified using double quotes. To get a double quote in a
string, use backslash. Similarly a double backslash is used to get a literal backslash.
For example ab\"c\\d is the string ab"c\d.
Comparison operators are evaluated as a match being 1 and a mismatch being 0, thus "(2 >
1) + (3 < 5)" evaluates as 2. All comparisons involving undefined (null) values are
deemed to be false.
The variables are where the file format specifics are accessed from the expression. The
variables correspond to SAM fields, for example to find paired alignments with high
mapping quality and a very large insert size, we may use the expression "mapq >= 30 &&
(tlen >= 100000 || tlen <= -100000)". Valid variable names and their data types are:
endpos int Alignment end position (1-based)
flag int Combined FLAG field
flag.paired int Single bit, 0 or 1
flag.proper_pair int Single bit, 0 or 2
flag.unmap int Single bit, 0 or 4
flag.munmap int Single bit, 0 or 8
flag.reverse int Single bit, 0 or 16
flag.mreverse int Single bit, 0 or 32
flag.read1 int Single bit, 0 or 64
flag.read2 int Single bit, 0 or 128
flag.secondary int Single bit, 0 or 256
flag.qcfail int Single bit, 0 or 512
flag.dup int Single bit, 0 or 1024
flag.supplementary int Single bit, 0 or 2048
library string Library (LB header via RG)
mapq int Mapping quality
mpos int Synonym for pnext
mrefid int Mate reference number (0 based)
mrname string Synonym for rnext
ncigar int Number of cigar operations
pnext int Mate's alignment position (1-based)
pos int Alignment position (1-based)
qlen int Alignment length: no. query bases
qname string Query name
qual string Quality values (raw, 0 based)
refid int Integer reference number (0 based)
rlen int Alignment length: no. reference bases
rname string Reference name
rnext string Mate's reference name
sclen int Number of soft-clipped bases
seq string Sequence
tlen int Template length (insert size)
[XX] int / string XX tag value
Flags are returned either as the whole flag value or by checking for a single bit. Hence
the filter expression flag.dup is equivalent to flag & 1024.
"qlen" and "rlen" are measured using the CIGAR string to count the number of query
(sequence) and reference bases consumed. Note "qlen" may not exactly match the length of
the "seq" field if the sequence is "*". "sclen" is the number of soft-clipped bases.
When combined in "qlen-sclen" it can give the number of sequence bases used in the
alignment, distinguishing between global alignment and local alignment length.
"endpos" is the (1-based inclusive) position of the rightmost mapped base of the read, as
measured using the CIGAR string, and for mapped reads is equivalent to "pos+rlen-1". For
unmapped reads, it is the same as "pos".
Reference names may be matched either by their string forms ("rname" and "mrname") or as
the Nth @SQ line (counting from zero) as stored in BAM using "tid" and "mtid"
respectively.
Auxiliary tags are described in square brackets and these expand to either integer or
string as defined by the tag itself (XX:Z:string or XX:i:int). For example [NM]>=10 can
be used to look for alignments with many mismatches and [RG]=~"grp[ABC]-" will match the
read-group string.
If no comparison is used with an auxiliary tag it is taken simply to be a test for the
existence of that tag. So [NM] will return any record containing an NM tag, even if that
tag is zero (NM:i:0). In htslib <= 1.15 negating this with ![NM] gave misleading results
as it was true if the tag did not exist or did exist but was zero. Now this is strictly
does-not-exist. An explicit exists([NM]) and !exists([NM]) function has also been added
to make this intention clear.
Similarly in htslib <= 1.15 using [NM]!=0 was true both when the tag existed and was not
zero as well as when the tag did not exist. From 1.16 onwards all comparison operators
are only true for tags that exist, so [NM]!=0 works as expected.
Some simple functions are available to operate on strings. These treat the strings as
arrays of bytes, permitting their length, minimum, maximum and average values to be
computed. These are useful for processing Quality Scores.
length(x) Length of the string (excluding nul char)
min(x) Minimum byte value in the string
max(x) Maximum byte value in the string
avg(x) Average byte value in the string
Note that "avg" is a floating point value and it may be NAN for empty strings. This means
that "avg(qual)" does not produce an error for records that have both seq and qual of "*".
NAN values will fail any conditional checks, so e.g. "avg(qual) > 20" works and will not
report these records. NAN also fails all equality, < and > comparisons, and returns zero
when given as an argument to the exists function. It can be negated with !x in which case
it becomes true.
Functions that operate on both strings and numerics:
exists(x) True if the value exists (or is explicitly true).
default(x,d) Value x if it exists or d if not.
Functions that apply only to numeric values:
sqrt(x) Square root of x
log(x) Natural logarithm of x
pow(x, y) Power function, x to the power of y
exp(x) Base-e exponential, equivalent to pow(e,x)
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
HTS_PATH
A colon-separated list of directories in which to search for HTSlib plugins. If
$HTS_PATH starts or ends with a colon or contains a double colon (::), the built-in
list of directories is searched at that point in the search.
If no HTS_PATH variable is defined, the built-in list of directories specified when
HTSlib was built is used, which typically includes /usr/local/libexec/htslib and
similar directories.
REF_PATH
A colon separated (semi-colon on Windows) list of locations in which to look for
sequences identified by their MD5sums. This can be either a list of directories or
URLs. Note that if a URL is included then the colon in http:// and ftp:// and the
optional port number will be treated as part of the URL and not a PATH field
separator. For URLs, the text %s will be replaced by the MD5sum being read.
If no REF_PATH has been specified it will default to
http://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/cram/md5/%s and if REF_CACHE is also unset, it will be set
to $XDG_CACHE_HOME/hts-ref/%2s/%2s/%s. If $XDG_CACHE_HOME is unset, $HOME/.cache
(or a local system temporary directory if no home directory is found) will be used
similarly.
REF_CACHE
This can be defined to a single location housing a local cache of references. Upon
downloading a reference it will be stored in the location pointed to by REF_CACHE.
REF_CACHE will be searched before attempting to load via the REF_PATH search list.
If no REF_PATH is defined, both REF_PATH and REF_CACHE will be automatically set
(see above), but if REF_PATH is defined and REF_CACHE not then no local cache is
used.
To avoid many files being stored in the same directory, REF_CACHE may be defined as
a pattern using %nums to consume num characters of the MD5sum and %s to consume all
remaining characters. If REF_CACHE lacks %s then it will get an implicit /%s
appended.
To aid population of the REF_CACHE directory a script misc/seq_cache_populate.pl is
provided in the Samtools distribution. This takes a fasta file or a directory of
fasta files and generates the MD5sum named files.
For example if you use seq_cache_populate -subdirs 2 -root /local/ref_cache to
create 2 nested subdirectories (the default), each consuming 2 characters of the
MD5sum, then REF_CACHE must be set to /local/ref_cache/%2s/%2s/%s.
EXAMPLES
o Import SAM to BAM when @SQ lines are present in the header:
samtools view -b aln.sam > aln.bam
If @SQ lines are absent:
samtools faidx ref.fa
samtools view -bt ref.fa.fai aln.sam > aln.bam
where ref.fa.fai is generated automatically by the faidx command.
o Convert a BAM file to a CRAM file using a local reference sequence.
samtools view -C -T ref.fa aln.bam > aln.cram
AUTHOR
Heng Li from the Sanger Institute wrote the original C version of samtools. Bob Handsaker
from the Broad Institute implemented the BGZF library. Petr Danecek and Heng Li wrote the
VCF/BCF implementation. James Bonfield from the Sanger Institute developed the CRAM
implementation. Other large code contributions have been made by John Marshall, Rob
Davies, Martin Pollard, Andrew Whitwham, Valeriu Ohan (all while primarily at the Sanger
Institute), with numerous other smaller but valuable contributions. See the per-command
manual pages for further authorship.
SEE ALSO
samtools-addreplacerg(1), samtools-ampliconclip(1), samtools-ampliconstats(1), samtools-
bedcov(1), samtools-calmd(1), samtools-cat(1), samtools-collate(1), samtools-consensus(1),
samtools-coverage(1), samtools-depad(1), samtools-depth(1), samtools-dict(1), samtools-
faidx(1), samtools-fasta(1), samtools-fastq(1), samtools-fixmate(1), samtools-flags(1),
samtools-flagstat(1), samtools-fqidx(1), samtools-head(1), samtools-idxstats(1), samtools-
import(1), samtools-index(1), samtools-markdup(1), samtools-merge(1), samtools-mpileup(1),
samtools-phase(1), samtools-quickcheck(1), samtools-reference(1), samtools-reheader(1),
samtools-rmdup(1), samtools-sort(1), samtools-split(1), samtools-stats(1), samtools-
targetcut(1), samtools-tview(1), samtools-view(1), bcftools(1), sam(5), tabix(1)
Samtools website: <http://www.htslib.org/>
File format specification of SAM/BAM,CRAM,VCF/BCF: <http://samtools.github.io/hts-specs>
Samtools latest source: <https://github.com/samtools/samtools>
HTSlib latest source: <https://github.com/samtools/htslib>
Bcftools website: <http://samtools.github.io/bcftools>