fastawrite - Write to file using FASTA format

Syntax

Arguments

File	String specifying either a file name or a path and file name for saving the FASTA-formatted data. If you specify only a file name, fastawrite saves the file to the MATLAB Current Folder. If you specify an existing file, fastawrite appends the data to the file, instead of overwriting the file.
Data	Any of the following: String containing a sequence MATLAB structure containing the fields Header and Sequence MATLAB structure containing sequence information from the GenBank or GenPept database, such as returned by genbankread, getgenbank, genpeptread, or getgenpept.
Header	String or name of variable containing information about the sequence. This text appears in the header of the FASTA-formatted file, File.
Sequence	String or name of variable containing an amino acid or nucleotide sequence using the standard IUB/IUPAC letter or integer codes. For a list of valid characters, see Amino Acid Lookup or Nucleotide Lookup.

Description

fastawrite(File, Data) writes the contents of Data to File, a FASTA-formatted file. If you specify an existing FASTA-formatted file,fastawrite appends the data to the file, instead of overwriting the file.

fastawrite(File, Header, Sequence) writes the specified header and sequence information to File, a FASTA-formatted file.

Tip   To append FASTA-formatted data to an existing file, simply specify that file name. fastawrite adds the data to the end of the file. If you are using fastawrite in a script, you can disable the append warning message by entering the following command lines before the fastawrite command: warnState = warning %Save the current warning state warning('off','Bioinfo:fastawrite:AppendToFile'); Then enter the following command line after the fastawrite command: warning(warnState) %Reset warning state to previous settings

Examples

Writing a Coding Region to a FASTA-Formatted File

1. Retrieve the sequence for the human p53 gene from the GenBank database.

   seq = getgenbank('NM_000546');

2. Read the coordinates of the coding region in the CDS line.

   start = seq.CDS.indices(1)
   
   start =
   
      198
   
   stop = seq.CDS.indices(2)
   
   stop =
   
      1379

3. Extract the coding region.

   codingSeq = seq.Sequence(start:stop);

4. Write the coding region to a FASTA-formatted file, specifying Coding region for p53 for the Header in the file, and p53coding.txt for the file name.

   fastawrite('p53coding.txt','Coding region for p53',codingSeq);

Saving Multiple Sequences to a FASTA-Formatted File

1. Write two nucleotide sequences to a MATLAB structure containing the fields Header and Sequence.

   data(1).Sequence = 'ACACAGGAAA';
   data(1).Header = 'First sequence';
   data(2).Sequence = 'ACGTCAGGTC';
   data(2).Header = 'Second sequence';
   

2. Write the sequences to a FASTA-formatted file, specifying my_sequences.txt for the file name.

   fastawrite('my_sequences.txt', data)
   

3. Display the FASTA-formatted file, my_sequences.txt.

   type('my_sequences.txt')
   
   >First sequence
   ACACAGGAAA
   
   >Second sequence
   ACGTCAGGTC
   

Appending Sequences to a FASTA-Formatted File

1. If you haven't already done so, create the FASTA-formatted file, my_sequences.txt, described in Saving Multiple Sequences to a FASTA-Formatted File.

2. Append a third sequence to the file.

   fastawrite('my_sequences.txt','Third sequence','TACTGACTTC')
   

3. Display the FASTA-formatted file, my_sequences.txt.

   type('my_sequences.txt')
   
   >First sequence
   ACACAGGAAA
   
   >Second sequence
   ACGTCAGGTC
   
   >Third sequence
   TACTGACTTC

See Also

fastainfo | fastaread | fastqinfo | fastqread | fastqwrite | genbankread | genpeptread | getgenbank | getgenpept | multialignwrite | saminfo | samread | seqtool | sffinfo | sffread

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