Reference API

This page offers a brief overview over all classes and functions offered by HTSeq.

Parser and record classes

For all supported file formats, parser classes (called Reader) are provided. These classes all instatiated by giving a file name or an open file or stream and the function as iterator generators, i.e., the parser objects can be used, e.g., in a for loop to yield a sequence of objects, each desribing one record. The table gives the parse class and the record class yielded. For details, see the linked documentation

For most formats, functionality for writing files of the format is provided. See the detailed documentation as these methods and classes have varying semantics.

File format	typical content	Parser class for reading	Record class yielded by parser	Method/class method for writing
FASTA	DNA sequences	FastaReader	Sequence	Sequence.write_to_fasta_file()
FASTQ	sequenced reads	FastqReader	SequenceWithQualities	SequenceWithQuality.write_to_fastq_file()
GFF (incl. GFF3 and GTF)	genomic annotation	GFF_Reader	GenomicFeature	GenomicFeature.get_gff_line()
BED	score data or annotation	BED_Reader	GenomicFeature
Wiggle (incl. BedGraph)	score data on a genome	WiggleReader	pair: (GenomicInterval, float)	GenomicArray.write_bedgraph_file()
SAM	aligned reads	SAM_Reader	SAM_Alignment	SAM_Alignment.get_sam_line()
BAM	aligned reads	BAM_Reader	SAM_Alignment	BAM_Writer
VCF	variant calls	VCF_Reader	VariantCall
Bowtie (legacy format)	aligned reads	BowtieReader	BowtieAlignment
SolexaExport (legacy format)	aligned reads	SolexaExportReader	SolexaExportAlignment

Most parser classes are sub-classes of class FileOrSequence, which users will, however, rarely use directly.

Specifying genomic positions and intervals

The class GenomicInterval specifies an interval on a chromosome (or contig or the like). It is defined by specifying the chromosome (or contig) name, the start and the end and the strand. Convenience methods are offered for different ways of accessing this information, and for tetsing for overlap between intervals. A GenomicPosition, technically a GenomicInterval of length 1, refers to a single nucleotide or base-pair position.

Objects of these classes are used internally wherever intervals or positions are represented, especially in record classes and as index keys to genomic array.

See page Positions, intervals and arrays for details.

Genomic arrays

The classes GenomicArray and GenomicArrayOfSets are container classes to store data associated with genomic positions or intervals.

See page Positions, intervals and arrays for details.

Special features for SAM/BAM files

The class CigarOperation offers a convenient way to handle the information encoded in the CIGAR field of SAM files.

The functions pair_SAM_alignments() and pair_SAM_alignments_with_buffer() help to pair up the records in a SAM file that describe a pair of alignments for mated reads from the same DNA fragment.

Similarly, the function bundle_multiple_alignments() bundles multiple alignment record pertaining to the same read or read pair.

See page Read alignments for details.