I would like to learn how snakemake handles following situations, and what is the best practice avoid collisions/corruptions.
rule something:
input:
expand("/path/to/out-{asd}.txt", asd=LIST)
output:
"/path/to/merged.txt"
shell:
"cat {input} >> {output}"
With snakemake -j10
the command will try to append to the same file simultaneously, and I could not figure out if this could lead to possible corruptions or if this is already handled.
Also, how are more complicated cases handled e.g. where it is not only cat
but a return value of another process based on input value being appended to the same file? Is the best practice first writing them to individual files then cat
ting them together?
rule get_merged_total_distinct:
input:
expand("{dataset_id}/merge_libraries/{tomerge}_merged_rmd.bam",dataset_id=config["dataset_id"],tomerge=list(TOMERGE.keys())),
output:
"{dataset_id}/merge_libraries/merged_total_distinct.csv"
params:
with_dups="{dataset_id}/merge_libraries/{tomerge}_merged.bam"
shell:
"""
RCT=$(samtools view -@4 -c -F1 -F4 -q 30 {params.with_dups})
RCD=$(samtools view -@4 -c -F1 -F4 -q 30 {input})
printf "{wildcards.tomerge},${{RCT}},${{RCD}}\n" >> {output}
"""
or cases where an external script is being called to print the result to a single output file?
input:
expand("infile/{x}",...) # expanded as above
output:
"results/all.txt"
shell:
"""
bash script.sh {params.x} {input} {params.y} >> {output}
"""
With your example, the shell directive will expand to
cat /path/to/out-SAMPLE1.txt /path/to/out-SAMPLE2.txt [...] >> /path/to/merged.txt
where SAMPLE1
, etc, comes from the LIST. In this case, there is no collision, corruption, or race conditions. One thread will run that command as if you typed it on your shell and all inputs will get cat
ed to the output. Since snakemake is pull based, once the output exists that rule will only run again if the inputs change at which points the new inputs will be added to the old due to using >>
. As such, I would recommend using >
so the old contents are removed; rules should be deterministic where possible.
Now, if you had done something like
rule something:
input:
"/path/to/out-{asd}.txt"
output:
touch("/path/to/merged-{asd}.txt")
params:
output="/path/to/merged.txt"
shell:
"cat {input} >> {params.output}"
# then invoke
snakemake -j10 /path/to/merged-{a..z}.txt
Things are more messy. Snakemake will launch all 10 jobs and output to the single merged.txt. Note that file is now a parameter and we are targeting some dummy files. This will behave as if you had 10 different shells and executed the commands
cat /path/to/out-a.txt >> /path/to/merged.txt
# ...
cat /path/to/out-z.txt >> /path/to/merged.txt
all at once. The output will have a random order and lines may be interleaved or interrupted.
As some guidance
Hope that helps. Otherwise you can comment or edit with a more realistic example of what you are worried about.