RAMTools

RAM (ROOT Alignment/Map) is a file format for aligned sequencing reads, the same data as a BAM, stored column by column in ROOT's RNTuple format. A RAM file is about a quarter smaller than the BAM of the same reads, needs no reference to be read, and answers region queries such as chr13:32889611-32973805. RAMTools converts SAM and BAM files to RAM, queries them, and writes them back out as SAM so every result can be checked against samtools.

The tools:

Tool	What it does
samtoramntuple	converts a SAM file to RAM
bamtoramntuple	converts a BAM file to RAM
ramdump	writes a RAM file, or a region of it, out as SAM; takes the samtools view options
ramntupleview	counts the records in a region and reports the query time

Installation

RAMTools builds on Linux. The steps below are for Ubuntu; other distributions need the same three things: ROOT, htslib and a C++17 compiler with CMake 3.16 or newer.

1. System packages

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y build-essential cmake git pkg-config libhts-dev libtbb-dev libvdt-dev

libhts-dev is htslib, which reads the BAM input. libtbb-dev and libvdt-dev are needed by ROOT. The -fqzcomp option compresses quality scores with fqzcomp from htscodecs, the codec CRAM 3.1 uses; if libhtscodecs-dev is installed it is used, otherwise the build downloads htscodecs 1.6.7 and compiles the two files it needs.

2. ROOT

RAMTools needs ROOT 6.38 or newer. The quickest way is the prebuilt archive from the ROOT project; pick the one matching your Ubuntu version from https://root.cern/install/all_releases/. For Ubuntu 24.04:

wget https://github.com/root-project/root/releases/download/v6-38-06/root_v6.38.06.Linux-ubuntu24.04-x86_64-gcc13.3.tar.gz
sudo tar -xzf root_v6.38.06.Linux-ubuntu24.04-x86_64-gcc13.3.tar.gz -C /opt/

ROOT has to be put on your path in every terminal you use it from:

source /opt/root/bin/thisroot.sh

Add that line to your ~/.bashrc to make it permanent. root --version should then print 6.38. If you use conda, conda install -c conda-forge root works as well and needs no thisroot.sh.

3. Build RAMTools

git clone https://github.com/compiler-research/ramtools.git
cd ramtools
cmake -S . -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build -j$(nproc)

The first configure downloads GoogleTest and Google Benchmark for the tests and benchmarks, and htscodecs unless libhtscodecs-dev is installed. Without network access, install libhtscodecs-dev and turn the tests and benchmarks off with -DRAMTOOLS_BUILD_TESTS=OFF -DRAMTOOLS_BUILD_BENCHMARKS=OFF.

The tools are in build/tools/. Running one without arguments prints its usage:

./build/tools/samtoramntuple

The tests take under a minute:

ctest --test-dir build

Converting to RAM

From a SAM file:

./build/tools/samtoramntuple reads.sam reads.ram

From a BAM file:

./build/tools/bamtoramntuple reads.bam reads.ram

Without an output name the file is written next to the input, reads.sam becoming reads.ram. Options for either tool:

Option	Effect
-compression N	ROOT compression code, algorithm times 100 plus level; the default 505 is ZSTD level 5 (see below)
-threads N	converts on N threads, see below
-illumina	stores quality scores in Illumina's 8 bins, which makes the file smaller
-dropqual	stores no quality scores
-fqzcomp	compresses quality scores with fqzcomp, as CRAM 3.1 does: a smaller file, slower conversion and dumps (see below); not with -illumina or -dropqual
-split	samtoramntuple only: one file per reference, reads_chr1.root, reads_chr2.root, and so on

With -threads N, samtoramntuple reads the input in 64 MB blocks and every thread parses, encodes and compresses blocks of its own. The blocks are written in input order, so the records come out in the order they went in, whatever the thread count. It needs about (N + 1) × 64 MB of memory on top of ROOT's own: a block for every thread and one read ahead. bamtoramntuple, and samtoramntuple with -split, parse on one thread and use the others to compress.

Sort the input by coordinate first, as samtools sort does. Region queries find a region by binary search over the positions, which only works on a sorted file. An unsorted file converts fine, but every query on it reads the whole file; the converter warns when that happens.

Querying a region

Regions are 1-based and inclusive, as in samtools:

Region	Records
chr1	every record on chr1
chr1:1000-2000	records overlapping bases 1000 to 2000
chr1:1000	records overlapping base 1000 only; samtools reads this as 1000 to the end of chr1
none, or *	every record in the file

Reference names are whatever the input used, so a GRCh37 file is queried as 13:32889611-32973805, not chr13.

Count the records overlapping a region, as samtools view -c does:

./build/tools/ramdump -c reads.ram chr1:10150-10300

Print them as SAM lines:

./build/tools/ramdump reads.ram chr1:10150-10300

ramdump takes the samtools view options -h (include the header), -H (header only), -c (count only), -f and -F (keep records with all, or none, of these FLAG bits) and -o FILE. For example, primary alignments only:

./build/tools/ramdump -c -F 0x900 reads.ram chr1:10150-10300

ramntupleview counts as well and prints how long the query took:

./build/tools/ramntupleview reads.ram chr1:10150-10300

Checking a RAM file against samtools

A RAM file holds everything the input did, so it can be written back out and compared:

./build/tools/ramdump -h reads.ram > roundtrip.sam
samtools view -c reads.bam chr1:10150-10300
./build/tools/ramdump -c reads.ram chr1:10150-10300

The two counts agree, and for a SAM input roundtrip.sam is the input byte for byte.

Benchmarks

HG00154 from the 1000 Genomes Project: 196,040,370 records, 72.06 GB as SAM, coordinate sorted, GRCh37 reference names (1, not chr1). Run on an Intel i3-7020U laptop (2 cores, 4 threads, 12 GB of memory) with input and output on the same hard disk, samtools 1.13. Every output holds the same 196,040,370 records.

File size

BAM is samtools view -b, CRAM is samtools view -C -T ref.fasta, and each RAM file is samtoramntuple -compression N with the setting shown. A CRAM cannot be read without its reference, so the stacked bar is the size of a self-contained copy. Uncompressed RAM (-compression 0) is 83.7 GB, larger than the SAM, because every string and vector column carries an offset column that the codecs then remove. ZSTD 9 is the only setting that comes in under CRAM plus its reference, at ten times the conversion time of ZSTD 5 for 9% less space.

Conversion

From the SAM file. CPU is user plus system time; wall time is bounded by the hard disk, which reads and writes about 77 MB/s.

Output	Command	Wall	CPU (s)	Size (GB)
BAM	samtools view -@ 4 -b	24:08	3,589	15.22
CRAM	samtools view -@ 4 -C -T ref.fasta	12:34	1,817	7.77
RAM, ZSTD 5	samtoramntuple	1:30:06	5,258	11.43
RAM, ZSTD 5	samtoramntuple -threads 4	32:59	7,664	11.43
RAM, ZSTD 3	samtoramntuple -compression 503 -threads 4	17:09	3,513	11.74
RAM, ZSTD 1	samtoramntuple -compression 501 -threads 4	14:32	1,273	12.27

Almost all of the conversion time is ZSTD; parsing the SAM is about 4% of it. Lowering the level is what makes it faster: ZSTD 3 needs half the CPU of ZSTD 5 for a 3% larger file, and ZSTD 1 converts faster than samtools writes a BAM and still gives a file a fifth smaller.

Region queries

Records overlapping a region, counted with samtools view -c for BAM and CRAM and ramdump -c for RAM (ZSTD 5). Best of three runs, warm cache. All three formats return the same records for every region.

Region	Records	BAM (s)	CRAM (s)	RAM (s)
100 bp, 1:1000000-1000100	2	0.15	0.10	0.48
BRCA2, 13:32889611-32973805	6,057	0.10	0.09	0.39
10 Mb, 1:10000000-20000000	582,985	0.80	1.75	0.40
100 Mb, 2:1-100000000	7,048,385	8.59	21.43	0.85

A RAM query spends about 0.4 s starting ROOT and opening the file, then finds the region by binary search and counts about 15 million records per second, since a count reads only the position and CIGAR columns. It is slower than samtools on small regions and faster from about 10 Mb up. The codec makes little difference: the 10 Mb query takes 0.46 to 0.55 s across all of them.

Compression settings

-compression N takes a ROOT compression code, algorithm times 100 plus level: 1 is ZLIB, 2 LZMA, 4 LZ4, 5 ZSTD, with levels 1 to 9, and 0 means no compression. The default is 505, ZSTD level 5. For a quick conversion use 501 or 503 with -threads; for the smallest file, 509 at a much higher conversion cost.

-fqzcomp compresses the quality scores, the largest part of a file, with fqzcomp from htscodecs, the codec CRAM 3.1 uses, in blocks of 10,000 records. On 2 million records of chromosome 11 the file is 8% smaller (148.5 MB instead of 161.6 MB). The price is time and memory: conversion takes 20 to 30% longer and about 65 MB more per thread, and dumping records about 30% longer with up to 200 MB more memory, because a dump decodes every block it touches. Counting records in a region reads no qualities and is as fast as without it.

Versioning

RAMTools follows Semantic Versioning. Until 1.0, a minor release (0.2, 0.3, ...) may change the command-line options and the C++ API; CHANGELOG.md lists what changed in each release.

Files are the exception: every RAM file written by a released version stays readable by every later version, so a file never has to be converted again after an upgrade. A newer version may write files that older versions cannot read.

An option or public function that is going away is first marked deprecated in the changelog and prints a warning for at least one minor release before it is removed.

Citing

If you use RAMTools in published work, cite the version you used. The "Cite this repository" button on the GitHub page gives the reference in APA and BibTeX form, taken from CITATION.cff. Every release is archived on Zenodo with a DOI of its own; 10.5281/zenodo.23362909 stands for all versions and leads to the latest.

Contributing

Bug reports, test cases and pull requests are welcome. CONTRIBUTING.md describes the development build, the test suites, the formatting and clang-tidy checks that run on every pull request, and what a reviewer looks for. The short version: branch from develop, keep each PR to one topic, and put the samtools command that confirms your result in the description.

Reporting a problem

Open an issue at https://github.com/compiler-research/ramtools/issues. Include the command you ran, its output, your ROOT version, and for a wrong result the samtools command that gives the answer you expected. A few SAM lines that reproduce the problem are the most useful thing you can attach.

License

RAMTools is released under the Apache License 2.0; see LICENSE.