Read and write GORpipe .gorz files and .gord dictionary folders as native DuckDB tables
Compatibility Matrix
This table covers all DuckDB releases that have not reached end-of-life, including LTS releases, and shows the 2 most recent patch releases of each. Older patch releases are not listed, but the extension may be available for them as well.
| Platform | 1.4.4 | 1.4.5 | 1.5.5 | 1.5.6 | 2.0.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Linux AMD64 | |||||
| Linux ARM64 | |||||
| macOS AMD64 | |||||
| macOS ARM64 | |||||
| Windows AMD64 | |||||
| Windows ARM64 | |||||
| WebAssembly |
Installing and Loading
INSTALL gorz FROM community;
LOAD gorz;
Example
-- Write a query result out as a GORZ file (rows must be in GOR order),
-- then read it back — with an optional GOR -p style range filter.
COPY (SELECT * FROM (VALUES ('chr1', 1000, 'A', 'G'), ('chr1', 2000, 'C', 'T'))
t(chrom, pos, ref, alt) ORDER BY chrom, pos)
TO 'variants.gorz' (FORMAT gorz);
SELECT * FROM read_gor('variants.gorz', range := 'chr1:1500-2500');
-- Equivalently, in plain SQL on the bare file name (the chrom / pos
-- predicates are pushed down into a block seek):
SELECT * FROM 'variants.gorz' WHERE chrom = 'chr1' AND pos BETWEEN 1500 AND 2500;
-- Write a .gord dictionary folder: one sorted .gorz per genomic range (here
-- 1 Mb per file) plus thedict.gord. The input needs no ORDER BY.
COPY (SELECT * FROM 'variants.gorz') TO 'variants.gord' (FORMAT gord, SPLIT 1000000);
SELECT * FROM 'variants.gord' WHERE chrom = 'chr1';
-- Read a partitioned .gord dictionary table (not shown here), keeping only
-- the partitions tagged sample1 or sample99 (GOR's -f). See the GORpipe paper
-- (Guðbjartsson et al., Bioinformatics 2016, doi:10.1093/bioinformatics/btw199)
-- and "Ultra-fast joint-genotyping with SparkGOR" (Guðbjartsson et al.,
-- bioRxiv 2022, doi:10.1101/2022.10.25.513331):
SELECT * FROM read_gord('example.gord', f := ['sample1', 'sample99']);
About gorz
The gorz extension reads and writes GORpipe
genomic files — block-compressed .gorz and .gord dictionary folders — as
native DuckDB tables. Files it writes are read and seeked natively by gorpipe, and
vice-versa.
Reading
-
read_gor(path)— auto-detects.gorzvs.gordby extension. -
read_gorz(path)/read_gord(path)— force the kind. - A replacement scan, so a bare literal works:
SELECT count(*) FROM 'variants.gord'; -
pgor … | write x.gordfolders — pass the folder itself (FROM 'x.gord'); itsx.gord/thedict.gordis read. - Projection & parallel scan — only selected columns are read; large files scan across threads.
-
WHERE chrom/pos→ block seek — range predicates seek into the right block instead of scanning the whole file. -
range := 'chrN:start-end'— GOR's-psemantics as a hard positional filter (also'chrN','chrN:start-','chrN:pos'). -
Partition filters — GOR's
-f/-ffsemantics prune a.gord's file list and expose aSourcecolumn:f := ['A','B']is an inline tag list,ff := 'tags.txt'is a tag file (one tag per line / first tab-delimited column,#lines skipped).source := 'PN'renames the exposed column. -
Object stores — paths resolve through DuckDB's FileSystem, so
s3://…works for reads and writes whenhttpfsis loaded.
Writing
COPY (SELECT chrom, pos, ref, alt FROM my_variants ORDER BY chrom, pos)
TO 'out.gorz' (FORMAT gorz); -- or (FORMAT gor) for plain sorted TSV
Single-threaded, standard block-zip; validates GOR order (chromosomes ascend
lexicographically, positions non-decreasing) and errors out otherwise. META
also writes the .gorz.meta sidecar (columns, types, line count, range, MD5),
which read_gor uses to hand the column types back.
COPY (SELECT * FROM my_variants) TO 'out.gord' (FORMAT gord, SPLIT 100);
Writes a dictionary folder, as pgor … | write out.gord does: one sorted
.gorz + .gorz.meta per genomic range and out.gord/thedict.gord. The query
needs no ORDER BY; it runs once and each range is sorted on its own, so
memory follows the size of a range rather than the size of the input.
-
SPLIT 'chrom'(default) — one file per chromosome. -
SPLIT n,n≤ 1000 —ngenome partitions (a step of 3,000,000,000 /nbases within each chromosome, aspgor -split=n). -
SPLIT n,n> 1000 —nbases per file. -
OVERWRITE— replace an existing.gordfolder. -
STAGING 'dir'— local directory for the temporary files (default: next to the output; DuckDB'stemp_directoryfor an object-store target).
Object stores
LOAD httpfs;
CREATE SECRET (TYPE s3, KEY_ID '…', SECRET '…', REGION 'eu-west-1');
COPY (SELECT * FROM my_variants) TO 's3://bucket/out.gord' (FORMAT gord, SPLIT 100);
SELECT count(*) FROM 's3://bucket/out.gord' WHERE chrom = 'chr17';
.gorz files and .gord folders can be read from and written to
S3-compatible stores (s3://…). For a folder write the temporary files stay
on local disk and only the finished .gorz, .meta and thedict.gord
objects are uploaded, the dictionary last.
References
- Guðbjartsson H. et al. GORpipe: a query tool for working with sequence data based on a Genomic Ordered Relational (GOR) architecture. Bioinformatics 32(20):3081–3088, 2016.
- Guðbjartsson H. et al. Ultra-fast joint-genotyping with SparkGOR. bioRxiv, 2022.
Added Functions
| function_name | function_type | description | comment | examples |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| read_gor | table | Reads a GORpipe .gorz file or .gord dictionary (a dictionary file or a .gord folder) as a table; the kind is taken from the path. Named parameters: range := 'chrN[:start-end]' keeps one genomic range (GOR's -p); for a .gord, f := ['tag', …] and ff := 'tag-file' keep only the partitions with those tags (GOR's -f / -ff) and source := 'name' renames the Source column. | NULL | [SELECT * FROM read_gor('variants.gorz', range := 'chr1:1500-2500'), SELECT * FROM read_gor('cohort.gord', f := ['sample1', 'sample99'])] |
| read_gord | table | Reads a GORpipe .gord dictionary (a dictionary file or a .gord folder) as one table, with a trailing Source column holding each row's partition tag. Named parameters: f := ['tag', …] and ff := 'tag-file' keep only the partitions with those tags (GOR's -f / -ff), source := 'name' renames the Source column, range := 'chrN[:start-end]' keeps one genomic range (GOR's -p). | NULL | [SELECT * FROM read_gord('cohort.gord', f := ['sample1', 'sample99']), SELECT count(*) FROM read_gord('cohort.gord', ff := 'tags.txt', range := 'chr7')] |
| read_gorz | table | Reads a GORpipe .gorz file as a table, whatever the path's extension. chrom / pos predicates in the WHERE clause seek to the matching blocks; range := 'chrN[:start-end]' keeps one genomic range (GOR's -p). | NULL | [SELECT chrom, pos, ref, alt FROM read_gorz('variants.gorz') WHERE chrom = 'chr1' AND pos BETWEEN 1500 AND 2500, SELECT count(*) FROM read_gorz('variants.gorz', range := 'chr7')] |
Overloaded Functions
This extension does not add any function overloads.
Added Types
This extension does not add any types.
Added Settings
| name | description | input_type | scope | aliases | typed_value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| gorz_scan_chunk_bytes | Byte size of each parallel .gorz full-scan range (0 = automatic: one range per thread, at least 16 MiB each) | BIGINT | GLOBAL | [] | 0 |
| temp_directory | Set the directory to which temporary files are written. | VARCHAR | GLOBAL | [] | post.db.tmp |