samtools SNP calling pipeline outputs VCard file instead of variant call format (VCF)

[MGCBrown]

Hello,

I used this workflow to call SNPs on bam files that were aligned to a reference de novo transcriptome assembly:

samtools mpileup -uf normalized_Trinity.fasta aln2.bam aln2.bam | bcftools view -bvcg \
- > var.raw.bcf

bcftools view var.raw.bcf | vcfutils.pl varFilter -D100 > var.flt.vcf



However, the final var.flt.vcf output is a VCard file in my Bitvise ssh client.

Any insight as to why this might be would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Mike

[HESmith]

It's not actually VCard format. It's just that VCard uses the same file extension (.vcf) as VCF, and your computer is configured to read the former by default. Open the VCF in a flat text editor and you'll see.

[Brian Bushnell]

For a Windows text editor, I recommend Notepad++. Though normally I find Excel slightly easier for VCFs, if they are small enough.

[MGCBrown]

Thanks for the help! I see that when I open my ssh client on a different computer, the files are no longer using the VCard extension.

Thanks again.