The java library for BigBed and BigWig: my notebook

Jim Robinson and his team, from the Broad Institute/IGV, have recently released a java library parsing the BigBed and the BigWig formats. Here is my notebook for this API.

Download and compile the library

The sources are hosted at: http://bigwig.googlecode.com/.

$ svn checkout http://bigwig.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ bigwig-read-only
$ cd bigwig-read-only
$ ant

Buildfile: build.xml

compile:
    [mkdir] Created dir: /path/to/bigwig-read-only/build
    [javac] Compiling 38 source files to /path/to/bigwig-read-only/build
    [javac] Note: /path/to/bigwig-read-only/src/org/broad/igv/bbfile/BPTree.java uses unchecked or unsafe operations.
    [javac] Note: Recompile with -Xlint:unchecked for details.

dist:
    [mkdir] Created dir: /path/to/bigwig-read-only/dist
      [jar] Building jar: /path/to/bigwig-read-only/dist/BigWig.jar

BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 3 seconds

Code

The following java code prints all the Bed or the Wig data in a given genomics region.

Compile

$javac -cp /path/to/bigwig-read-only/dist/BigWig.jar:. BigCat.java

Test

List the data in a BigBed file:

java -cp /path/to/bigwig-read-only/dist/BigWig.jar:/path/to/bigwig-read-only/lib/log4j-1.2.15.jar:. BigCat /path/to/bigwig-read-only/test/data/chr21.bb  | head
chr21 9434178 9434609 
chr21 9434178 9434609 
chr21 9508110 9508214 
chr21 9516607 9516987 
chr21 9903013 9903230 
chr21 9903013 9903230 
chr21 9905661 9906613 
chr21 9907217 9907519 
chr21 9907241 9907415 
chr21 9907597 9908258

List the data in a BigBed file for the region: 'chr21:9906000-9908000', allow the overlaps.

$ java -cp /path/to/bigwig-read-only/dist/BigWig.jar:/path/to/bigwig-read-only/lib/log4j-1.2.15.jar:. BigCat -p chr21:9906000-9908000 /path/to/bigwig-read-only/test/data/chr21.bb  | head
chr21 9905661 9906613 
chr21 9907217 9907519 
chr21 9907241 9907415 
chr21 9907597 9908258

List the data in a BigBed file for the region: 'chr21:9906000-9908000', do not allow the overlaps.

$ java -cp /path/to/bigwig-read-only/dist/BigWig.jar:/path/to/bigwig-read-only/lib/log4j-1.2.15.jar:. BigCat -p chr21:9906000-9908000 -c /path/to/bigwig-read-only/test/data/chr21.bb  | head
chr21 9907217 9907519 
chr21 9907241 9907415

List the data in a BigWig file:

$ java -cp /path/to/bigwig-read-only/dist/BigWig.jar:/path/to/bigwig-read-only/lib/log4j-1.2.15.jar:. BigCat  /path/to/bigwig-read-only/test/data/wigVarStepExample.bw  | head
chr21 9411190 9411195 50.0
chr21 9411195 9411200 40.0
chr21 9411200 9411205 60.0
chr21 9411205 9411210 20.0
chr21 9411210 9411215 20.0
chr21 9411215 9411220 20.0
chr21 9411220 9411225 40.0
chr21 9411225 9411230 60.0
chr21 9411230 9411235 40.0
chr21 9411235 9411240 40.0

List the data in a BigWig file for the region: 'chr21:9906000-9908000'

$ java -cp /path/to/bigwig-read-only/dist/BigWig.jar:/path/to/bigwig-read-only/lib/log4j-1.2.15.jar:. BigCat -p chr21:9906000-9908000 /path/to/bigwig-read-only/test/data/wigVarStepExample.bw  | head
chr21 9906000 9906005 20.0
chr21 9906005 9906010 60.0
chr21 9906010 9906015 60.0
chr21 9906015 9906020 60.0
chr21 9906020 9906025 80.0
chr21 9906025 9906030 60.0
chr21 9906030 9906035 40.0
chr21 9906035 9906040 80.0
chr21 9906040 9906045 80.0
chr21 9906045 9906050 80.0

See also

• Biostar: Java parser for BigWig ?
• Handling a BigWig file from Java+JNI : my notebook

That's it,

Pierre