What it does
This tool allows you to join several files with the same column structure into one file, removing certain columns if necessary. The user needs to select a 'hinge', which is the number of left-most columns to match on. They also need to select the columns to include in the join, which should include the hinge columns, too.
Note that the files are expected to have the same number of columns. If for some reason the join column is missing (this only applies to the last column(s)), the tool attempts to handle this situation by inserting an empty item (or the appropriate filler) for that column on that row. This could lead to the situation where a row has a hinge but entirely empty or filled columns, if the hinge exists in at least one file but every file that has it is missing the join column. Also, note that the tool does not distinguish between a file missing the hinge altogether and a file having the hinge but missing the column (in both cases the column would be empty or filled). There is an example of this below.
General Example
Given the following files:
FILE 1 chr2 1 T 6 .C..., I$$III chr2 2 G 6 ..N.., III@II chr2 3 C 7 ..C..., I$IIIII chr2 4 G 7 .G...., I#IIIII chr2 5 G 7 ...N.., IIII#BI chr2 6 A 7 ..T..., I$IDIII chr1 1 C 1 ^:. I chr1 2 G 2 .^:. $I chr1 3 A 2 .. I% chr1 4 C 2 .. I$ chr1 5 T 3 ..^:. I#I chr1 6 G 3 ..^:, I#I FILE 2 chr1 3 T 1 ^:. I chr1 4 G 2 .^:. $I chr1 5 T 2 .. I% chr1 6 C 3 ..^:. III chr1 7 G 3 ..^:. I#I chr1 8 T 4 ...^:, I#II chr2 77 C 6 .G..., I$$III chr2 78 G 6 ..N.., III@II chr2 79 T 7 ..N..., I$IIIII chr2 80 C 7 .G...., I#IIIII chr2 81 G 7 ...A.., IIII#BI chr2 82 A 8 ...G..., I$IDIIII chr2 83 T 8 .A.....N IIIIIIII chr2 84 A 9 ......T. I$IIIIIII FILE 3 chr1 1 A 1 . I chr1 2 T 2 G. I$ chr1 3 C 2 ., I@ chr1 4 C 3 ..N III chr1 42 C 5 ...N^:. III@I chr1 43 C 5 .N..^:. IIIII chr1 44 T 5 .A.., IA@II chr1 45 A 6 .N...^:. IIIII$ chr1 46 G 6 .GN..^:. I@IIII chr1 47 A 7 ....^:.., IIIII$I chr2 73 T 5 .N.., II$II chr2 74 A 5 ...., IIIII chr2 75 T 5 ...., IIIII chr2 76 T 5 ...., IIIII chr2 77 C 5 ...., IIIBI chr2 78 T 5 ...., IDIII
To join on columns 3 and 4 combining on columns 1 and 2, columns 1-4 should be selected for the 'Include these columns' option, and column 2 selected for the 'hinge'. With these settings, the following would be output:
chr1 1 C 1 A 1 chr1 2 G 2 T 2 chr1 3 A 2 T 1 C 2 chr1 4 C 2 G 2 C 3 chr1 5 T 3 T 2 chr1 6 G 3 C 3 chr1 7 G 3 chr1 8 T 4 chr1 42 C 5 chr1 43 C 5 chr1 44 T 5 chr1 45 A 6 chr1 46 G 6 chr1 47 A 7 chr2 1 T 6 chr2 2 G 6 chr2 3 C 7 chr2 4 G 7 chr2 5 G 7 chr2 6 A 7 chr2 73 T 5 chr2 74 A 5 chr2 75 T 5 chr2 76 T 5 chr2 77 C 6 C 5 chr2 78 G 6 T 5 chr2 79 T 7 chr2 80 C 7 chr2 81 G 7 chr2 82 A 8 chr2 83 T 8 chr2 84 A 9
Example with missing columns
Given the following input files:
FILE 1 1 A 2 B b 4 C c 5 D 6 E e FILE 2 1 M m 2 N 3 O o 4 P p 5 Q 7 R r
if we join only column 3 using column 1 as the hinge and with a fill value of '0', this is what will be output:
1 0 m 2 b 0 3 0 o 4 c p 5 0 0 6 e 0 7 0 r
Row 5 appears in both files with the missing column, so it's got nothing but fill values in the output file.