Hello world!
Can someone please supply me with the exact specification
of the GCG-MSF format. I need it for a program that I am writing.
More specifically, I would like to have my program produce multiple
sequence files that can be used by the appropriate GCG programs.
I sent a similar email query to help at gcg.com a couple of weeks
ago but go no reply!
It sure would be nice if there was a utilitity that took one of
the cleaner formats, oh-say Fasta or PIR/NBRF, and converted to
MSF -- but there isn't.
Please no responses along the lines of "read the manuals" because,
(a) I don't even know where this machine really is - let alone
the documentation;
and
(b) the online documentation is not detailed enough for my needs.
I need the gory details such as how picky GCG programs are likely
to be about what characters are in which columns and - even more
importantly- the algorithm for the checksum. The latter isn't
that critical because I can dig it out of the ReadSeq source
code (once again, thanks to Don Gilbert at indiana).
-Eric Cabot
LBP/NIDDK
elmo at helix.nih.gov
