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samtools-split(1) Bioinformatics tools samtools-split(1) NAME samtools split - splits a file by read group. SYNOPSIS samtools split [options] merged.sam|merged.bam|merged.cram DESCRIPTION Splits a file by read group, or a specified tag, producing one or more out- put files matching a common prefix (by default based on the input file- name). Unless the -d option is used, the file will be split according to the @RG tags listed in the header. Records without an RG tag or with an RG tag un- defined in the header will cause the program to exit with an error unless the -u option is used. RG values defined in the header but with no records will produce an output file only containing a header. If the -d TAG option is used, the file will be split on the value in the given aux tag. Only string (type Z) and integer (type i in SAM, plus equivalents in BAM/CRAM) tags are currently supported. Unless the -u op- tion is used, the program will exit with an error if it finds a record without the given tag. Note that attempting to split on a tag with high cardinality may result in the creation of a large number of output files. To prevent this, the -M option can be used to set a limit on the number of splits made. Using -d RG behaves in a similar way to the default (without -d), opening an output file for each @RG line in the header. However, unlike the de- fault, new output files will be opened for any RG tags found in the align- ment records irrespective of if they have a matching header @RG line. The -u option may be used to specify the output filename for any records with a missing or unrecognised tag. This option will always write out a file even if there are no records. Output format defaults to BAM. For SAM or CRAM then either set the format with --output-fmt or use -f to set the file extension e.g. -f %*_%#.sam. OPTIONS -u FILE1 Put reads with no tag or an unrecognised tag into FILE1 -h FILE2 Use the header from FILE2 when writing the file given in the -u option. This header completely replaces the one from the input file. It must be compatible with the input file header, which means it must have the same number of refer- ences listed in the @SQ lines and the references must be in the same order and have the same lengths. -f STRING Output filename format string (see below) ["%*_%#.%."] -d TAG Split reads by TAG value into distinct files. Only the TAG key must be supplied with the option. The value of the TAG has to be a string (i.e. key:Z:value) or an integer (key:i:value). Using this option changes the default filename format string to "%*_%!.%.", so that tag values appear in the output file names. This can be overridden by using the -f option. -p NUMBER Pad numeric values in %# and %! format expansions to this many digits using leading zeros. For %!, only integer tag values will be padded. String tag values will be left un- changed, even if the value only includes digits. -M,--max-split NUM Limit the number of files created by the -d option to NUM (default 100). This prevents accidents where trying to split on a tag with high cardinality could result in the creation of a very large number of output files. Once the file limit is reached, any tag values not already seen will be treated as unmatched and the program will exit with an error unless the -u option is in use. If desired, the limit can be removed using -M -1, although in practice the number of outputs will still be restricted by system limits on the number of files that can be open at once. If splitting by read group, and the read group count in the header is higher than the requested limit then the limit will be raised to match. -v Verbose output --no-PG Do not add a @PG line to the header of the output file. Format string expansions: %% % %* basename %# index (of @RG in the header, or count of TAG values seen so far) %! @RG ID or TAG value %. output format filename extension -@, --threads INT Number of input/output compression threads to use in addition to main thread [0]. AUTHOR Written by Martin Pollard from the Sanger Institute. SEE ALSO samtools(1), samtools-addreplacerg(1) Samtools website: <http://www.htslib.org/> samtools-1.23.1 18 March 2026 samtools-split(1)
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | AUTHOR | SEE ALSO
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