scanVcf {VariantAnnotation} | R Documentation

## Import VCF files

### Description

Import Variant Call Format (VCF) files in text or binary format

### Usage

    scanVcfHeader(file, ...)
    ## S4 method for signature 'character'
    scanVcfHeader(file, ...)

    scanVcf(file, ..., param)
    ## S4 method for signature 'character,ScanVcfParam'
    scanVcf(file, ..., param)
    ## S4 method for signature 'character,missing'
    scanVcf(file, ..., param)
    ## S4 method for signature 'connection,missing'
    scanVcf(file, ..., param)

    ## S4 method for signature 'TabixFile'
    scanVcfHeader(file, ...)
    ## S4 method for signature 'TabixFile,missing'
    scanVcf(file, ..., param)
    ## S4 method for signature 'TabixFile,ScanVcfParam'
    scanVcf(file, ..., param)
    ## S4 method for signature 'TabixFile,GRanges'
    scanVcf(file, ..., param)
    ## S4 method for signature 'TabixFile,RangesList'
    scanVcf(file, ..., param)

### Arguments

`file` | For `scanVcf` and `scanVcfHeader`, the character() file name, `TabixFile`, or class `connection` (`file()` or `bgzip()`) of the ‘VCF’ file to be processed.
`param` | A instance of `ScanVcfParam` influencing which records are parsed and the ‘INFO’ and ‘GENO’ information returned.
`...` | Additional arguments for methods

### Details

The argument `param` allows portions of the file to be input, but requires that the file be bgzip'd and indexed as a `TabixFile`.

`scanVcf` with `param="missing"` and `file="character"` or `file="connection"` scan the entire file. With `file="connection"`, an argument `n` indicates the number of lines of the VCF file to input; a connection open at the beginning of the call is open and incremented by `n` lines at the end of the call, providing a convenient way to stream through large VCF files.

The INFO field of the scanned VCF file is returned as a single ‘packed’ vector, as in the VCF file. The GENO field is a list of matrices, each matrix corresponds to a field as defined in the FORMAT field of the VCF header. Each matrix has as many rows as scanned in the VCF file, and as many columns as there are samples. As with the INFO field, the elements of the matrix are ‘packed’. The reason that INFO and GENO are returned packed is to facilitate manipulation, e.g., selecting particular rows or samples in a consistent manner across elements.

### Value

`scanVcfHeader` returns a `VCFHeader` object with header information parsed into five categories, `samples`, `meta`, `fixed`, `info` and `geno`. Each can be accessed with a ‘getter’ of the same name (e.g., info(<VCFHeader>)). If the file header has multiple rows with the same name (e.g., 'source') the row names of the DataFrame are made unique in the usual way, 'source', 'source.1' etc.

`scanVcf` returns a list, with one element per range. Each list has 7 elements, obtained from the columns of the VCF specification:

rowRanges

  `GRanges` instance derived from `CHROM`, `POS`, `ID`, and the width of `REF`

REF

  reference allele

ALT

  alternate allele

QUAL

  phred-scaled quality score for the assertion made in ALT

FILTER

  indicator of whether or not the position passed all filters applied

INFO

  additional information

GENO

  genotype information immediately following the FORMAT field in the VCF

The `GENO` element is itself a list, with elements corresponding to those defined in the VCF file header. For `scanVcf`, elements of GENO are returned as a matrix of records x samples; if the description of the element in the file header indicated multiplicity other than 1 (e.g., variable number for “A”, “G”, or “.”), then each entry in the matrix is a character string with sub-entries comma-delimited.

### Author(s)

Martin Morgan and Valerie Obenchain>

### References

http://vcftools.sourceforge.net/specs.html outlines the VCF specification.

http://samtools.sourceforge.net/mpileup.shtml contains information on the portion of the specification implemented by `bcftools`.

http://samtools.sourceforge.net/ provides information on `samtools`.

### See Also

`readVcf` `BcfFile` `TabixFile`

### Examples

      fl <- system.file("extdata", "ex2.vcf", package="VariantAnnotation")
      scanVcfHeader(fl)
      vcf <- scanVcf(fl)
      ## value: list-of-lists
      str(vcf)
      names(vcf[[1]][["GENO"]])
      vcf[[1]][["GENO"]][["GT"]]

[Package VariantAnnotation version 1.24.5 Index]