How to read fasta sequences as hash using perl?

Tariq Abdullah
1 Min Read

This is a simple Perl script to read a multifasta file as a hash.

Suppose, your multifasta file is “input.fasta”, which you want to read as the hash.

#! /usr/bin/perl
use warnings;
use strict;
my $infile = "input.fasta";
my %sequences;

open( FH, '<', $infile ) or die $!;

while( my $line = <FH> ){
      chomp $line;
      if ( $line =~ /^(>.*)$/ )){
           my $id = $1;
      }
      elseif ( $line !~ /^\s*$/ ){
           $sequences{$id} .= $line;
      }
}

close (FH);
exit;

If you want to write a subroutine for reading a fasta file, then you can do like this:

#! /usr/bin/perl
use warnings;
use strict 'vars';

my $infile = "input.fasta";
my %seqs = %{ read_fasta_as_hash($infile) };#call the subroutine
          #your code goes here

sub read_fasta_as_hash{
  my $inputfile = shift;
  my $id = '';
  my %sequences;
  open( INFILE, '<', $inputfile ) or die $!;
        
  while( my $line = <INFILE> ){ 
        chomp $line;
        if ( $line =~ /^(>.*)$/ )){
            my $id = $1;
        }
        elseif ( $line !~ /^\s*$/ ){
             $sequences{$id} .= $line;
        }
   }
   close (INFILE);
   return %sequences;
}

exit;
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Tariq is founder of Bioinformatics Review and Lead Developer at IQL Technologies. His areas of expertise include algorithm design, phylogenetics, MicroArray, Plant Systematics, and genome data analysis. If you have questions, reach out to him via his homepage.
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