NAME

sff — a binary file format used to encode pyrosequencing results

DESCRIPTION

The standard flowgram format (sff), was designed by 454 Life Sciences, the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, and the Sanger Institute. It was used to store reads produced by the Roche 454 sequencing platforms, and early versions of the Ion Torrent PGM sequencing platforms.

Original NCBI documentation available at:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Traces/trace.cgi?view=doc_formats#sffhere

If unavailable, it can be recovered from https://web.archive.org. We provide this modified version for preservation purposes.

The proposed SFF file format (version 1) is a container file for storing one or many 454 reads. 454 reads differ from standard sequencing reads in that the 454 data does not provide individual base measurements from which basecalls can be derived. Instead, it provides measurements that estimate the length of the next homopolymer stretch in the sequence (i.e., in “AAATGG”, “AAA” is a 3-mer stretch of A’s, “T” is a 1-mer stretch of T’s and “GG” is a 2-mer stretch of G’s). A basecalled sequence is then derived by converting each estimate into a homopolymer stretch of that length and concatenating the homopolymers.

The file format consists of different sections: a common header section occurring once in the file, then for each read stored in the file, a read header section and a read data section. An optional index section can also be present after the common header section, or anywhere among the reads, or at the end of the file.

The data in each section consists of a combination of numeric and character data, where the specific fields for each section are defined below. The sections adhere to the following rules:

• The standard Unix types uint8_t, uint16_t, uint32_t and uint64_t are used to define 1, 2, 4 and 8-byte numeric values.
• All multi-byte numeric values are stored in big endian byte order (also called network byte order; same as the Standard Chromatogram Format, SCF). Endianness refers to the order in which the bytes of a multi-byte value are stored in a file or in memory: in big endian order, the most significant byte is stored first, at the lowest address. This contrasts with little endian order, where the least significant byte comes first — the convention used by most modern processors (x86, ARM).
• All character fields use single-byte ASCII characters.
• Each section definition ends with an eight_byte_padding field, which consists of 0 to 7 bytes of padding, so that the length of each section is divisible by 8 (and hence the next section is aligned on an 8-byte boundary).

Common Header Section

The common header section consists of the following fields:

 magic_number               uint32_t
 version                    char[4]
 index_offset               uint64_t
 index_length               uint32_t
 number_of_reads            uint32_t
 header_length              uint16_t
 key_length                 uint16_t
 number_of_flows_per_read   uint16_t
 flowgram_format_code       uint8_t
 flow_chars                 char[number_of_flows_per_read]
 key_sequence               char[key_length]
 eight_byte_padding         uint8_t[*]

where the following properties are true for these fields:

• The magic_number field value is 0x2E736666, the uint32_t encoding of the string “.sff”
• The version number corresponding to this proposal is 0001, or the byte array “\0\0\0\1”.
• The index_offset and index_length fields are the offset and length of an optional index of the reads in the SFF file. If no index is included in the file, both fields must be 0.
• The number_of_reads field should be set to the number of reads stored in the file.
• The header_length field should be the total number of bytes required by this set of header fields, and should be equal to “31 + number_of_flows_per_read + key_length” rounded up to the next value divisible by 8.
• The key_length and key_sequence fields should be set to the length and nucleotide bases of the key sequence used for these reads. Note: The key_sequence field is not null-terminated.
• The number_of_flows_per_read should be set to the number of flows for each of the reads in the file.
• The flowgram_format_code should be set to the format used to encode each of the flowgram values for each read.
  • Note: Currently, only one flowgram format has been adopted, so this value should be set to 1.
  • The flowgram format code 1 stores each value as a uint16_t, where the floating point flowgram value is encoded as “(int) round(value * 100.0)”, and decoded as “(storedvalue * 1.0 / 100.0)”.
• The flow_chars should be set to the array of nucleotide bases (‘A’, ‘C’, ‘G’ or ‘T’) that correspond to the nucleotides used for each flow of each read. The length of the array should equal number_of_flows_per_read.
  • Note: The flow_chars field is not null-terminated.
• If any eight_byte_padding bytes exist in the section, they should have a byte value of 0.

Read Header Section

The rest of the file contains the information about the reads, namely number_of_reads entries consisting of read header and read data sections. The read header section consists of the following fields:

 read_header_length         uint16_t
 name_length                uint16_t
 number_of_bases            uint32_t
 clip_qual_left             uint16_t
 clip_qual_right            uint16_t
 clip_adapter_left          uint16_t
 clip_adapter_right         uint16_t
 name                       char[name_length]
 eight_byte_padding         uint8_t[*]

where these fields have the following properties:

• read_header_length should be set to the length of the read header for this read, and should be equal to “16 + name_length” rounded up to the next value divisible by 8.
• The name_length and name fields should be set to the length and string of the read’s accession or name.
  • Note: The name field is not null-terminated.
• The number_of_bases should be set to the number of bases called for this read.
• The clip_qual_left and clip_adapter_left fields should be set to the position of the first base after the clipping point, for quality and/or an adapter sequence, at the beginning of the read. If only a combined clipping position is computed, it should be stored in clip_qual_left.

  • The position values use 1-based indexing, so the first base is at position 1.

  • If a clipping value is not computed, the field should be set to 0.

  • Thus, the first base of the insert is:

    max(
     1,
     max(clip_qual_left, clip_adapter_left)
       )
    

• The clip_qual_right and clip_adapter_right fields should be set to the position of the last base before the clipping point, for quality and/or an adapter sequence, at the end of the read. If only a combined clipping position is computed, it should be stored in clip_qual_right.

  • The position values use 1-based indexing.

  • If a clipping value is not computed, the field should be set to 0.

  • Thus, the last base of the insert is:

    min(
     (clip_qual_right    == 0 ? number_of_bases : clip_qual_right),
     (clip_adapter_right == 0 ? number_of_bases : clip_adapter_right)
       )
    

Read Data Section

The read data section consists of the following fields:

 flowgram_values            uint*_t[number_of_flows]
 flow_index_per_base        uint8_t[number_of_bases]
 bases                      char[number_of_bases]
 quality_scores             uint8_t[number_of_bases]
 eight_byte_padding         uint8_t[*]

where the fields have the following properties:

• The flowgram_values field contains the homopolymer stretch estimates for each flow of the read. The number of bytes used for each value depends on the common header flowgram_format_code value (where the current value uses a uint16_t for each value).
• The flow_index_per_base field contains the flow positions for each base in the called sequence (i.e., for each base, the position in the flowgram whose estimate resulted in that base being called).
  • These values are “incremental” values, meaning that the stored position is the offset from the previous flow index in the field.
  • All position values (prior to their incremental encoding) use 1-based indexing, so the first flow is flow 1.
• The bases field contains the basecalled nucleotide sequence.
• The quality_scores field contains the quality scores for each of the bases in the sequence, where the values use the standard -log10 probability scale.

Index Section (optional)

If an index is included in the file, the index_offset and index_length values in the common header should point to the section of the file containing the index. Note that the index section can be placed after the common header section, or anywhere among the reads, or at the end of the file. To support different indexing methods, the index section should begin with the following two fields:

 index_magic_number         uint32_t
 index_version              char[4]

followed by the actual index data (n bytes) and a eight_byte_padding field, so that the total length of the index section is divisible by 8. The format of the rest of the index data is specific to the indexing method used. Currently, there are no officially supported indexing formats. The index_length given in the common header should include the bytes of these fields and the padding.

Computing Lengths and Scanning the File

The length of each read’s section will be different, because of different length accession numbers and different length nucleotide sequences. However, the various flow, name and bases lengths given in the common and read headers can be used to scan the file, accessing each read’s information or skipping read sections in the file. The following pseudocode gives an example method to scanning the file and accessing each read’s data:

• Open the file and/or reset the file pointer position to the first byte of the file.
• Read the first 31 bytes of the file, confirm the magic_number value and version, then extract the number_of_reads, number_of_flows_per_read, flowgram_format_code, header_length, key_length, index_offset and index_length values.
  • Convert the flowgram_format_code into a flowgram_bytes_per_flow value (currently with format_code 1, this value is 2 bytes).
• If the flow_chars and key_sequence information is required, read the next “header_length - 31” bytes, then extract that information. Otherwise, set the file pointer position to byte header_length.
• While the file contains more bytes, do the following:
  • If the file pointer position equals index_offset, either read or skip index_length bytes in the file, processing the index if read.
  • Otherwise,
    • Read 16 bytes and extract the read_header_length, name_length and number_of_bases values.
    • Read the next “read_header_length - 16” bytes to read the name.
    • At this point, a test of the name field can be performed, to determine whether to read or skip this entry.
    • Compute the read_data_length as: number_of_flows * flowgram_bytes_per_flow + 3 * number_of_bases, rounded up to the next value divisible by 8.
    • Either read or skip read_data_length bytes in the file, processing the read data if the section is read.

SEE ALSO

vsearch-sff_convert(1), vsearch-fasta(5), vsearch-fastq(5)

CITATION

Rognes T, Flouri T, Nichols B, Quince C, Mahé F. (2016) VSEARCH: a versatile open source tool for metagenomics. PeerJ 4:e2584 doi: 10.7717/peerj.2584

REPORTING BUGS

Submit suggestions and bug-reports at https://github.com/torognes/vsearch/issues, send a pull request on https://github.com/torognes/vsearch, or compose a friendly or curmudgeont e-mail to Torbjørn Rognes (torognes@ifi.uio.no).

AVAILABILITY

Source code and binaries are available at https://github.com/torognes/vsearch.

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (C) 2014-2026, Torbjørn Rognes, Frédéric Mahé and Tomás Flouri

All rights reserved.

Contact: Torbjørn Rognes torognes@ifi.uio.no, Department of Informatics, University of Oslo, PO Box 1080 Blindern, NO-0316 Oslo, Norway

This software is dual-licensed and available under a choice of one of two licenses, either under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 3 or the BSD 2-Clause License.

GNU General Public License version 3

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.

The BSD 2-Clause License

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS “AS IS” AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to thank the authors of the following projects for making their source code available:

• vsearch includes code from Google’s CityHash project by Geoff Pike and Jyrki Alakuijala, providing some excellent hash functions available under a MIT license.
• vsearch includes code derived from Tatusov and Lipman’s DUST program that is in the public domain.
• vsearch includes public domain code written by Alexander Peslyak for the MD5 message digest algorithm.
• vsearch includes public domain code written by Steve Reid and others for the SHA1 message digest algorithm.
• vsearch binaries may include code from the zlib library, copyright Jean-Loup Gailly and Mark Adler.
• vsearch binaries may include code from the bzip2 library, copyright Julian R. Seward.