<html>
  <head>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
  </head>
  <body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
    <p>Hi Brandon,</p>
    <p>Do you have any updates about this?</p>
    <p>Thanks,<br>
      Asier<br>
    </p>
    <div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 07/06/2019 16:42, Brandon Walts
      wrote:<br>
    </div>
    <blockquote type="cite"
      cite="mid:66af20b2-39e9-701b-d208-f45fbcdc7e23@ebi.ac.uk">
      <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
      <p>Hi Asier</p>
      <p>Thanks for bringing this up. We will look into what's going on
        and see if there is a bug, if the documentation needs
        improvement, or both.</p>
      <p>Best<br>
        -Brandon<br>
      </p>
      <div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 07/06/2019 13:47, Asier Gonzalez
        wrote:<br>
      </div>
      <blockquote type="cite"
        cite="mid:a7228afe-5355-bd36-8a93-7617f98e4eff@ebi.ac.uk">
        <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;
          charset=UTF-8">
        <p>Hi all,</p>
        <p>I'm troubleshooting a Perl tool that calls the Ensembl API
          with a variant id and tries to find the gene with the closest
          5' end within a 500 kb window. The tool was written by a
          colleague and it uses
          Bio::EnsEMBL::DBSQL::BaseFeatureAdaptor::fetch_all_by_outward_search()
          like this:</p>
        <pre style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:'Menlo';font-size:9.0pt;"><span style="color:#000080;font-weight:bold;">my </span>@gene_list_for_feature  = @{$gene_adaptor->fetch_all_by_outward_search( 
                                                   -FEATURE => $var_feature,
                                                   -RANGE => <span style="color:#0000ff;">10000</span>,
                                                   -MAX_RANGE => <span style="color:#0000ff;">500000</span>,
                                                   -LIMIT => <span style="color:#0000ff;">40</span>,
                                                   -FIVE_PRIME => <span style="color:#0000ff;">1</span>)};</pre>
        <p>According to the documentation of this function (<a
            class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.ensembl.org/info/docs/Doxygen/core-api/classBio_1_1EnsEMBL_1_1DBSQL_1_1BaseFeatureAdaptor.html#a76a51bc70828aaccb9435eda9a44b20a"
            moz-do-not-send="true">http://www.ensembl.org/info/docs/Doxygen/core-api/classBio_1_1EnsEMBL_1_1DBSQL_1_1BaseFeatureAdaptor.html#a76a51bc70828aaccb9435eda9a44b20a</a>),
          it "Searches for features within the suggested -RANGE, and if
          it finds none, expands the search area until it satisfies
          -LIMIT or hits -MAX_RANGE". My understanding is that in my
          case it should search first in a 10 kb window and, if there
          are no genes, progressively expand it to up to 500 kb unless
          it finds 40 features before. However, this is not the
          behaviour I am seeing, the search range grows like this: 10k,
          20k, 60k, 240k and 1.20M. Is this a bug or have I misundertood
          what it does?</p>
        <p>I have looked into the code of this subroutine (<a
            moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://github.com/Ensembl/ensembl/blob/release/96/modules/Bio/EnsEMBL/DBSQL/BaseFeatureAdaptor.pm#L1441-L1469">https://github.com/Ensembl/ensembl/blob/release/96/modules/Bio/EnsEMBL/DBSQL/BaseFeatureAdaptor.pm#L1441-L1469</a>)
          and the search window growths exponentially because it
          multiplies the previous value instead of the initial value:</p>
        <p><span class="pl-smi">[L1452] $search_range</span> = <span
            class="pl-smi">$search_range</span> * <span class="pl-smi">$factor</span>;</p>
        <p>In addition, it is not true that it only expands the range if
          it does not find any features in the initial window, which is
          obvious from looking into the while statement:</p>
        <p>[L1451] <span class="pl-k">while</span> (<span class="pl-c1">scalar</span>
          <span class="pl-smi">@results</span> < <span
            class="pl-smi">$limit</span> && <span
            class="pl-smi">$search_range</span> <= <span
            class="pl-smi">$max_range</span>) {</p>
        <p>I am also confused by the fact that, apparently, the found
          features only need to be partially within the range. For
          instance, ENSG00000150394 (CDH8) is found with the above
          parameters although its 5' prime end is 1,338,771 bp away from
          the variant according to the distance reported by the
          function. So, it seems that the feature is found because its
          3' end is within the range although the 5' prime end, which is
          what I am interested in, is not. This somehow contradicts what
          the documentation says (<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://github.com/Ensembl/ensembl/blob/release/96/modules/Bio/EnsEMBL/DBSQL/BaseFeatureAdaptor.pm#L1490-L1491">https://github.com/Ensembl/ensembl/blob/release/96/modules/Bio/EnsEMBL/DBSQL/BaseFeatureAdaptor.pm#L1490-L1491</a>):
          "When looking beyond the boundaries of the source Feature, the
          distance is measured to the nearest end of that Feature to the
          nearby Feature's nearest end."</p>
        <p>Any help will be much appreciated. I am happy to share code
          if you think it would be useful.</p>
        <p>Thanks,<br>
          Asier<br>
        </p>
        <br>
        <fieldset class="mimeAttachmentHeader"></fieldset>
        <pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">_______________________________________________
Dev mailing list    <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:Dev@ensembl.org" moz-do-not-send="true">Dev@ensembl.org</a>
Posting guidelines and subscribe/unsubscribe info: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://lists.ensembl.org/mailman/listinfo/dev_ensembl.org" moz-do-not-send="true">https://lists.ensembl.org/mailman/listinfo/dev_ensembl.org</a>
Ensembl Blog: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.ensembl.info/" moz-do-not-send="true">http://www.ensembl.info/</a>
</pre>
      </blockquote>
    </blockquote>
  </body>
</html>