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Awk command for fastq read length and number of reads?

Hello,

I am trying to do something similar to this old thread (https://www.biostars.org/p/72433/), were I want to determine both the read length and how many reads are in my fastq file. Here is my code:

gunzip -c SRR1060507_1.fastq.gz|awk 'NR%4==2{printlength($0)}'|uniq -c

But I keep getting the following error:

awk: cmd. line:1: (FILENAME=- FNR=2) fatal: function `printlength' not defined

I'm not sure what I've done incorrectly? I also tried Frederic's code from the old thread and although I got that code to run, its not exactly the output I'm seeking, I should be returning something like 2420797 100

Any help would be super appreciated!

awk fastq
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written by oars oars 
gunzip -c SRR1060507_1.fastq.gz | awk 'NR%4==2{print length($0)}'

-for length

gunzip -c SRR1060507_1.fastq.gz | awk 'END {print NR/4}'

-for num. of sequences

• 0 views • link
written by Korsocius Korsocius

1 answer

Try:

print length($0)
• 0 views • link
written by cschu181 cschu181

Thanks for the suggestion. This worked! I'm very new to both bioinformatics and bash so I feel a bit silly but also very thankful for your help!

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written by oars oars

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