1htsfile(1) Bioinformatics tools htsfile(1)
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6 htsfile - identify high-throughput sequencing data files
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9 htsfile [-chHv] FILE...
10 htsfile --copy [-v] FILE DESTFILE
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13 The htsfile utility attempts to identify what kind of high-throughput
14 sequencing data files the specified files are, and provides minimal
15 viewing capabilities for some kinds of data file.
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17 It can identify sequencing data files such as SAM, BAM, and CRAM; vari‐
18 ant calling data files such as VCF and BCF; index files used to index
19 these data files; and compressed versions of many of them.
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21 For each FILE given, htsfile prints a description of the file format
22 determined, using similar keyword conventions to file(1): "text" indi‐
23 cates a textual file that can probably be viewed on a terminal; "data"
24 indicates binary data; "sequence", "variant calling", and "index" indi‐
25 cate different categories of data file. When it can be identified, the
26 name of the particular file format (such as "BAM" or "VCF") is printed
27 at the start of the description.
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29 When used to view file contents as text, htsfile can optionally show
30 only headers or only data records, but has no other filtering capabili‐
31 ties. Use samtools or bcftools if you need more extensive viewing or
32 filtering capabilities.
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34 Alternatively, when --copy is used, htsfile takes exactly two arguments
35 and performs a byte-for-byte copy from FILE to DESTFILE. This is simi‐
36 lar to cp(1), but HTSlib's remote file access facilities are available
37 for both source and destination.
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39 The following options are accepted:
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41 -c, --view
42 Instead of identifying the specified files, display a textual rep‐
43 resentation of their contents on standard output.
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45 By default, --view refuses to display files in unknown formats.
46 When --verbose is also given, the raw contents of such files are
47 displayed, with non-printable characters shown via C-style "\x"
48 hexadecimal escape sequences.
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50 -C, --copy
51 Instead of identifying or displaying the specified files, copy the
52 source FILE to the destination DESTFILE. Only --verbose may be
53 used in conjunction with --copy.
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55 -h, --header-only
56 Display data file headers only. Implies --view.
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58 -H, --no-header
59 When viewing files, display data records only.
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61 -v, --verbose
62 Display additional warnings and diagnostic messages. Using --ver‐
63 bose repeatedly further raises the verbosity.
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66 bcftools(1), file(1), samtools(1)
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70htslib-1.15.1 7 April 2022 htsfile(1)