| name | get-overlap |
| description | Use when you need to append the overlap size or gap distance between two intervals that already appear on the same line, such as paired output from `bedtools window`. |
| disable-model-invocation | true |
| user-invocable | true |
get-overlap
Quick Start
- Command:
getOverlap -i <input> -cols start1,end1,start2,end2
- Local executable:
/home/vimalinx/miniforge3/envs/bio/bin/getOverlap
- Full reference: See references/help.md
When To Use This Tool
- Quantify how much two intervals overlap after another tool has already paired them on the same row.
- Turn
bedtools window-style output into a table with a final numeric overlap or distance column.
- Score candidate interval pairs before thresholding or ranking them downstream.
- Add a simple overlap metric without rerunning a full interval join.
Common Patterns
windowBed \
-a A.bed \
-b B.bed \
-w 10 \
| getOverlap -i stdin -cols 2,3,6,7
getOverlap \
-i paired-intervals.tsv \
-cols 2,3,6,7
Recommended Workflow
- Generate or prepare a table where each row already contains the two intervals you want to compare.
- Determine the exact 1-based column numbers for
start1,end1,start2,end2 in that table.
- Run
getOverlap on the file or use the literal input name stdin when streaming from a pipe.
- Interpret the appended value before downstream filtering: positive means overlap, negative means separation, and zero means the intervals touch without overlapping.
Guardrails
-cols must be given in the exact order start1,end1,start2,end2; swapping them changes the result.
- This tool does not pair records for you; it only computes a metric from coordinates already present on the same line.
- Use the literal token
stdin with -i when piping from another command.
- Prefer
-h for help; GNU-style --help and --version emit wrapper errors before usage text.