samtools view command not found error

Question

When I tried to use samtools to split a bam file based on different chromosomes, I used this command:

samtools view input.bam -b chr21 | chr21.bam

However, I get error messages like this:

-bash: chr21.bam: command not found
[W::hts_idx_load3] The index file is older than the data file: input.bam.bai

How could I solve this problem? Thanks in advance~~~

The version I am using is:

Program: samtools (Tools for alignments in the SAM format)
Version: 1.10 (using htslib 1.10.2)

Answer 1

Try re-indexing your bam file:

samtools index input.bam

Or update the timestamp via touch index.bam.bai but I think re-indexing is safer. You might want to save any original index file first, e.g. via mv input.bam.bai old_input.bam.bai or similar

Also I think you meant > chr21.bam instead of piping via | chr21.bam if you want to save the output file