taxon-tools

Tools for working with taxonomic names

Tools

matchnames

Reconciling small variations in taxonomic names facilitates the integration of biological names-based data. This tool matches a query list of (parsed) taxonomic names (List A) against a reference list (List B), according to a set of taxonomic rules (described below). The taxonomic rules are most appropriate for plant names, as specified by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature. Can also perform approximate (fuzzy) matching to identify variations (e.g., misspelling) in binomial names and author strings. An output status code is given for each type of match.

See this blog, this poster, and the man page for more details.

matchnames can either use i) an internal function for calculating fuzzy matches (levenstein(); the default), or ii) the external aregex extension library, part of the gawkextlib project. The latter is ~8 times faster (e.g., 4.2 s vs. 35.3 s on a no-user-input fuzzy match (-F) with the -a file of 2,823 lines and the -b file of 19,435 lines, fuzzy error of 5), but less portable and longer to install. Note that the matching results may differ slightly between the two methods for a given value of -e.

parsenames

Split biological names into component parts:

1. Genus hybrid sign
2. Genus name
3. Species hybrid sign
4. Specific epithet
5. Infraspecific rank signifier (“subsp.”, “var.”, etc.)
6. Infraspecific epithet
7. Name’s author string

Most of the work is done by a single regular expression. See the man page for more details.

Installation

All tools are Awk scripts for use with the Gawk flavor of Awk.

Linux

For the default (no dependency) version, the matchnames and parsenames scripts can be copied wherever needed, or placed somewhere in the user’s PATH environmental variable. Just make sure gawk is at: /bin/gawk, or that /bin/gawk is a symlink pointing to gawk, or edit the first line of matchnames and parsenames to point to gawk.

For system-wide installation, install with:

make check
make install

and make sure that /usr/local/bin/ is in $PATH. E.g.:

export PATH=/usr/local/bin/:$PATH

For the (faster) aregex version, first build and install aregex.so; see https://github.com/camwebb/gawk-aregex. Environmental variable $AWKLIBPATH must include the install directory (/usr/local/lib/gawk/ by default), E.g., in .bashrc:

export AWKLIBPATH=.:/usr/lib/gawk/:/usr/local/lib/gawk/
export PATH=/usr/local/bin/:$PATH

Then:

make aregexversion
make check
make install

to check and run this version. Commands matchnames and parsenames should now work anywhere.

Mac

Should be the same as Linux, but you will need to install GNU Gawk first (via, e.g., Homebrew). The MacOS awk is not gawk.

Windows

matchnames can be easily run using Gawk cross-compiled for Windows, and the CMD.EXE command prompt:

• Download Gawk from Ezwinports and unzip on the Desktop.
• Download the latest taxon-tools release from github: https://github.com/camwebb/taxon-tools/releases/, and unzip on the Desktop.
• In the menubar search box, type CMD.EXE and open it. This is the old DOS commandline. MS Powershell can also be used.

Type these commands (altering the verson numbers if different). The latest CMD.EXE has command line TAB-completion which speeds things up. Basic commands: dir = view directory files, cd = change directory, copy, more = see file contents.

cd Desktop\taxon-tools-1.1
dir
..\gawk-5.1.0-w32-bin\bin\gawk.exe -f matchnames
..\gawk-5.1.0-w32-bin\bin\gawk.exe -f matchnames -a test\listA -b test\listB -o out.txt -F
dir
more out.txt

Docker

See Repo on Docker Hub.

docker pull camwebb/taxon-tools:v1.3.0

Running the programs

If needed, parse names first:

cat rawnamesA
  ...
  x-234|Foogenus x barspecies var. foosubsp (L.) F. Bar 
parsenames rawnamesA > listA
cat listA
  ...
  x-234||Foogenus|×|barspecies|var.|foosubsp|(L.) F. Bar
parsenames rawnamesB > listB

Then match the names:

matchnames -a listA -b listB -o matchedA -f -q
------------------------------------------------------- x-234 --( 1/ 1)
   Foogenus × barspecies var. foosubsp (L.) F. Bar
1: Foogenus × barspcies var. foosubsp (L.) F. Bar
2: Foogenus × barspecies var. foosubsp L.
> 1
...
cat matchedA
x-234|y-235|manual||Foogenus|×|barspecies|var.|foosubsp|(L.) F. Bar|\
  |Foogenus|×|barspcies|var.|foosubsp|(L.) F. Bar

Tips for usage

• If you make a mistake during manual matching and catch it after the wrong choice has been entered, just jot down the code of the A list entry. At the end of the run, edit the ..._manual file to remove that entry and rerun the program. You will be presented with that choice again, along with choices for any other errors you may have made.

Citation

@Misc{webb2022mat,
  author =    {Webb, C. O.},
  title =     {Matchnames: joining biological name lists using
               taxonomic logic and approximate string matching},
  note =      {Version 1.3.0},
  year =      {2022},
  url  =      {https://github.com/camwebb/taxon-tools/},
  doi  =      {10.5281/zenodo.6402523}
}

Downstream

• taxon-tools is being used in an R package: taxastand
• taxon-tools now has a Docker image