primersearch Illegal character '/' error: EMBOSS An error in primersearch.c at line 499

Question

[sovrappensiero]

I am trying to run primersearch to get a large batch of primer pairs against a directory of around 45 fasta files. When I try to run it for one using the command below, I get the error that follows. I also have the debug file, but I don't know how to upload that. I've tried with EMBOSS/6.5.7 and EMBOSS/6.4.0. Has anyone seen this error, or at least have a clue what it means?

primersearch -seqall sequences/SAMN04014954.fasta -infile primerList.txt -mismatchpercent 10 -outfile SAMN04014954



Search DNA sequences for matches with primer pairs
Warning: Illegal character '/'
EMBOSS An error in primersearch.c at line 499: 
Illegal pattern

Thank you for your help.

[Mark]

Did you search the fasta file for any instances of /? eg:

grep -n "/" SAMN04014954.fasta

This will give you line number as well. Check both your files.

[sovrappensiero]

Thanks! I had checked that. I figured out that the problem was with my primer file - basically I had two, each formatted differently for different purposes, and I was calling the wrong one. Stupid mistake. Still, that was a strange error...would been a lot easier to troubleshoot the problem if there were some kind of formatting check on the files that issued a human-readable message like, "Invalid file format".

[Mark]

Totally agree but error checking is a never ending issue :) Glad you figured it out.