[emboss-dev] USA syntax and `%' character in sequence file names

[Nicolas Joly]

On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 10:47:54PM +0100, ajb at ebi.ac.uk wrote:
> Hi Nicolas,
> 
> What it does, given a USA like:
> 
>     foo%10
> 
> is to seek 10 bytes into file foo and try to start
> reading a sequence from there. It does not, however, currently check that
> what appears after the '%' is a valid number. I believe invalid numbers
> are equivalent to an offset of 0.
> 
> I suspect it might have been intended as a useful debugging tool for
> the programmer rather than as something for the biologist.
> If we leave it as an option we ought to mention it the documentation
> in some form though.

Thanks, Alan. Personally, i would get rid of it. But if you plan to
keep it, please check for valid numbers before using it.

-- 
Nicolas Joly

Biological Software and Databanks.
Institut Pasteur, Paris.