The NEXUS standard is very specific about some requirements of input file.
In many cases these requirements are necessary for the semantics to be clear, but in some cases an invalid file is not ambiguous. By default NCL is pretty strict about the rules, but this can be frustrating for users who are constantly having their files rejected (fortunately, NCL's error messages are usually helpful; see Why are the error messages that NCL generates because of invalid files so crystal-clear and helpful?).
There are several ways to make the NexusReader more forgiving than it normally is. Some of these methods involve calling functions (mentioned below) that are in methods of some NxsBlock subclass. To make your PublicNexusReader instance use blocks that have been modified you will have to get the template for each type of block (see PublicNexusReader::GetTreesBlockTemplate() for example).
- It is very common to encounter a file without a TREES block but no TAXA block. If you call NxsTreesBlock::SetAllowImplicitNames(true) on the NxsTaxaBlock template instance, then any NxsTreeBlocks cloned from this instance will generate an "implied" Taxa block when they are read (if there is no taxa block in memory). See "Implied" blocks and "Scoping" of TAXA blocks.
- The use of NxsReader::cullIdenticalTaxaBlocks(true) can help avoid redundant NxsTaxaBlock instances. See "Scoping" of TAXA blocks
- If you are going to reuse a NxsReader, you may want to call NxsReader::DemoteBlocks() before each execution/reading of a file. This will give the blocks from previous files lower priority (see "Scoping" of TAXA blocks).
- NxsCharactersBlock::SetAllowAugmentingOfSequenceSymbols() with the argmunte true will cause NCL to accept characters matrices with symbols added on to the standard symbols. See NxsCharactersBlock::SetConvertAugmentedToMixed() for a discussion of how such character blocks are dealt with after the parse.
- Any reader derived from PublicNexusReader will raise an NxsException when the parser encounters syntax that causes a warning that is given a level of PROBABLY_INCORRECT_CONTENT_WARNING or higher. You can make NCL issue warnings instead of errors by calling reader->SetWarningToErrorThreshold(NxsReader::FATAL_WARNING). Or you can make the parser generate NxsExceptions for milder warnings if you pass in an argument associated with a less severe warning (see the NxsReader::NxsWarnLevel
- MrBayes introduced the
datatype=MIXED syntax to the Format command of the CHARACTERS block. This is more explicit than the older NEXUS style of simply augmenting the symbols list (without saying which datatype corresponds to which column). Use NxsCharactersBlock::SetSupportMixedDatatype(true) to enable this features.
If you also call NxsCharactersBlock::SetConvertAugmentedToMixed(true), the NCL will attempt to separate a sequence datatype with augmented symbols list into a mixed type that has the same sequence type but also has a set of characters that are datatype standard. See Dealing with Datatype=Mixed discussion. enum)
Next see
Quirks and Gotchas for info on common stumbling blocks
Brief Directory:
1.6.3