jkb at mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk wrote:
>> Simon Andrews <simon.andrews at bbsrc.ac.uk> writes:
>> > I've got a problem with using ABI files
> > I'm trying to pass the files through pregap without reformatting them
> > into SCFs, ZTRs or anything else.
> Please take up this issue with ABI. The reason why everyone writes to SCF is
> simply that SCF is a public standard with example source code freely
> available. ABI on the other hand is a proprietary format closely guarded by
> ABI. People reverse engineered enough to extract the bits needed, but
> generally most people have more than enough sense than to write back to this
> format - they'll switch to something more standard.
> Is there a reason why you need to write back to ABI format files? They're large
> compared to SCF and huge next to ZTR.
OK, the problem I have is that all of our chromatograms come in as ABI
files. I am trying to encourage more people to use these in their
assemblies. Given our disk space limitations it would make sense for
people to convert to SCF/ZTR format and work with those - however our
experience is that if we do that, then people never go back and delete
the ABI files, and just end up with two copies of everything! In this
case it would be better not to convert the files in the first place, as
at least that would save a bit of space.
However, now I think about it, a better solution might be to have an
option in the Format conversion module which would delete the original
chromatogram file upon successful conversion to SCF/ZTR format. This
would both reduce clutter, and save on disk space, and would mean that
we end up with a friendly file format. If you are converting files, I
can't see many occasions under which you need to keep the originals as
well (as long as the conversion was successful).
Do others think this would be useful - or am I on my own here? :-)
Simon.
