FASTAQ-TO_RANDOM_SUBSET(1)

✨ NAME ✨

fastaq_to_random_subset — it grabs a random sample of sequences for u 🎲 and yeah it can pull the matching mates too if u want

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

okay bestie, the vibe here is: u hand it a sequence file, u tell it what percent of reads to keep, and it gives u back a random subset. that's it, that's the whole thing. slay. 🦋

and if u ALSO give it a mates file? it'll grab the corresponding read from that mates file too — so ur pairs stay paired, no lonely reads left behind 😭. ur output comes out interleaved when a mates file is given. periodt.

the usage looks like this:

fastaq_to_random_subset [options] <infile> <outfile> <percent>

🎀 positional arguments 🎀

• infile — the name of ur input file, the one u love 💖
• outfile — the name of ur output file, where the goods go ✨
• FLOAT — the per cent probability that any given read (or read pair, if we're doing mates) gets kept. it lives in [0,100]. so like, 50 means half, 100 means everything, 0 means… bestie why 😭

🧚 options 🧚

• -h, --help — shows this help message and then dips out (exit). iconic behavior honestly 💅
• --mate_file MATE_FILE — the name of the mates file, for when u want the matching reads to come along too 🫶
• --seed INT — the seed for the random number generator. if u don't give one, python's default is what gets used 🌈 (lowkey means u get a different subset every run unless u set it, so set it if u want reproducibility, bestie)

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no cap: everything above is verbatim from the page, i did not invent a single flag. ur faves could never 🌸

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k bye, this was fastaq_to_random_subset version 3.17.0, brought to u from the User Commands corner of the manual, dated January 2026 — stay random, stay subset, mwah 💜🎀