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faidx(5)		     Bioinformatics formats			faidx(5)

NAME
     faidx - an index enabling random access to FASTA and FASTQ files

SYNOPSIS
     file.fa.fai, file.fasta.fai, file.fq.fai, file.fastq.fai

DESCRIPTION
     Using  an	fai index file in conjunction with a FASTA/FASTQ file containing
     reference sequences enables efficient access to  arbitrary  regions  within
     those  reference sequences.  The index file typically has the same filename
     as the corresponding FASTA/FASTQ file, with .fai appended.

     An fai index file is a text file consisting of lines each with five TAB-de-
     limited columns for a FASTA file and six for FASTQ:
     NAME	  Name of this reference sequence
     LENGTH	  Total length of this reference sequence, in bases
     OFFSET	  Offset in the FASTA/FASTQ file of this sequence's first base
     LINEBASES	  The number of bases on each line
     LINEWIDTH	  The number of bytes in each line, including the newline
     QUALOFFSET   Offset of sequence's first quality within the FASTQ file

     The NAME and LENGTH columns contain the same data as would appear in the SN
     and LN fields of a SAM @SQ header for the same reference sequence.

     The OFFSET column contains the offset within the FASTA/FASTQ file, in bytes
     starting from zero, of the first base of this reference sequence, i.e.,  of
     the  character following the newline at the end of the header line (the ">"
     line in FASTA, "@" in FASTQ). Typically the lines of a fai index  file  ap-
     pear  in  the  order  in  which  the  reference  sequences  appear  in  the
     FASTA/FASTQ file, so .fai files are typically sorted according to this col-
     umn.

     The LINEBASES column contains the number of bases in each of  the	sequence
     lines  that  form the body of this reference sequence, apart from the final
     line which may be shorter.  The LINEWIDTH column  contains  the  number  of
     bytes  in	each of the sequence lines (except perhaps the final line), thus
     differing from LINEBASES in that it also counts the bytes forming the  line
     terminator.

     The QUALOFFSET works the same way as OFFSET but for the first quality score
     of  this  reference  sequence.  This would be the first character following
     the newline at the end of the "+" line.  For FASTQ files only.

   FASTA Files
     In order to be indexed with samtools faidx, a FASTA file  must  be  a  text
     file of the form

	    >name [description...]
	    ATGCATGCATGCATGCATGCATGCATGCAT
	    GCATGCATGCATGCATGCATGCATGCATGC
	    ATGCAT
	    >name [description...]
	    ATGCATGCATGCAT
	    GCATGCATGCATGC
	    [...]

     In  particular, each reference sequence must be "well-formatted", i.e., all
     of its sequence lines must be the same length, apart  from  the  final  se-
     quence line which may be shorter.	(While this sequence line length must be
     the  same within each sequence, it may vary between different reference se-
     quences in the same FASTA file.)

     This also means that although the FASTA file may  have  Unix-  or	Windows-
     style  or	other  line  termination, the newline characters present must be
     consistent, at least within each reference sequence.

     The samtools implementation uses the first word of the ">" header line text
     (i.e., up to the first whitespace character,  having  skipped  any  initial
     whitespace after the ">") as the NAME column.

   FASTQ Files
     FASTQ files for indexing work in the same way as the FASTA files.

	    @name [description...]
	    ATGCATGCATGCATGCATGCATGCATGCAT
	    GCATGCATGCATGCATGCATGCATGCATGC
	    ATGCAT
	    +
	    FFFA@@FFFFFFFFFFHHB:::@BFFFFGG
	    HIHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIFFFF
	    8011<<
	    @name [description...]
	    ATGCATGCATGCAT
	    GCATGCATGCATGC
	    +
	    IIA94445EEII==
	    =>IIIIIIIIICCC
	    [...]

     Quality  lines  must be wrapped at the same length as the corresponding se-
     quence lines.

EXAMPLE
     For example, given this FASTA file

	    >one
	    ATGCATGCATGCATGCATGCATGCATGCAT
	    GCATGCATGCATGCATGCATGCATGCATGC
	    ATGCAT
	    >two another chromosome
	    ATGCATGCATGCAT
	    GCATGCATGCATGC

     formatted with Unix-style (LF) line termination, the corresponding fai  in-
     dex would be
	    one   66	5   30	 31
	    two   28   98   14	 15

     If  the  FASTA file were formatted with Windows-style (CR-LF) line termina-
     tion, the fai index would be
	    one   66	 6   30   32
	    two   28   103   14   16

     An example FASTQ file

	    @fastq1
	    ATGCATGCATGCATGCATGCATGCATGCAT
	    GCATGCATGCATGCATGCATGCATGCATGC
	    ATGCAT
	    +
	    FFFA@@FFFFFFFFFFHHB:::@BFFFFGG
	    HIHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIFFFF
	    8011<<
	    @fastq2
	    ATGCATGCATGCAT
	    GCATGCATGCATGC
	    +
	    IIA94445EEII==
	    =>IIIIIIIIICCC

     Formatted with Unix-style line termination would give this fai index
	    fastq1   66     8	30   31    79
	    fastq2   28   156	14   15   188

SEE ALSO
     samtools(1)

     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FASTA_format

     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FASTQ_format

	    Further description of the FASTA and FASTQ formats

htslib				    June 2018				faidx(5)

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