Overview

The ruffus module is a lightweight way to add support for running computational pipelines.

Computational pipelines are often conceptually quite simple, especially if we breakdown the process into simple stages, or separate tasks.

Each stage or task in a computational pipeline is represented by a python function Each python function can be called in parallel to run multiple jobs.

Ruffus was originally designed for use in bioinformatics to analyse multiple genome data sets.

Documentation

Ruffus documentation can be found here , with an download notes , a short tutorial and an in-depth tutorial .

Background

The purpose of a pipeline is to determine automatically which parts of a multi-stage process needs to be run and in what order in order to reach an objective (“targets”)

Computational pipelines, especially for analysing large scientific datasets are in widespread use. However, even a conceptually simple series of steps can be difficult to set up and to maintain, perhaps because the right tools are not available.

Design

The ruffus module has the following design goals:

Simplicity. Can be picked up in 10 minutes

Elegance

Lightweight

Unintrusive

Flexible/Powerful

Features

Automatic support for

Managing dependencies

Parallel jobs

Re-starting from arbitrary points, especially after errors

Display of the pipeline as a flowchart

Reporting

A Simple example

Use the @follows(…) python decorator before the function definitions:
from ruffus import *
import sys

def first_task():
    print "First task"

@follows(first_task)
def second_task():
    print "Second task"

@follows(second_task)
def final_task():
    print "Final task"
the @follows decorator indicate that the first_task function precedes second_task in the pipeline.

Usage

Each stage or task in a computational pipeline is represented by a python function Each python function can be called in parallel to run multiple jobs.
Import module:
import ruffus
Annotate functions with python decorators
Print dependency graph if you necessary
For a graphical flowchart in jpg, svg, dot, png, ps, gif formats:
graph_printout ( open("flowchart.svg", "w"),
                 "svg",
                 list_of_target_tasks)
This requires dot to be installed
For a text printout of all jobs
pipeline_printout(sys.stdout, list_of_target_tasks)
Run the pipeline:
pipeline_run(list_of_target_tasks, [list_of_tasks_forced_to_rerun, multiprocess = N_PARALLEL_JOBS])

Release files for ruffus 2.0.8

For a detailed explanation of source distributions (sdists) and built distributions (wheels), please see the package formats documentation.

Source distributions (sdists)

Source distribution for ruffus 2.0.8
File	Size	Uploaded
ruffus-2.0.8.zip	2.2 MB	Jan 24, 2010	Details
ruffus-2.0.8.tar.gz	2.1 MB	Jan 24, 2010	Details

Release files / ruffus-2.0.8.zip

Download URL	ruffus-2.0.8.zip
Size	2.2 MB
Tags	Source
SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums	`35afe0635b0eb74226add5942c6a6a3fb9a95f992291c9ddd4b2bee1ae42f769`
BLAKE2b-256 checksum How to use checksums	`79cc690d30ef4cd8ff74145ce3dcd0617d60318d2a633ab84ad3e7c1f59b741a`
Upload date	Jan 24, 2010
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? What is trusted publishing?	No

Release files / ruffus-2.0.8.tar.gz

Download URL	ruffus-2.0.8.tar.gz
Size	2.1 MB
Tags	Source
SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums	`d80d55c680fbf43d93696111a85a2cb3e805fdfa69b527745f31ccfcdf1d23fc`
BLAKE2b-256 checksum How to use checksums	`bd2e0d1a15deb10ac1caf8d9d387edc07a7b4daba32f33f3cf2d18cb76a53fc1`
Upload date	Jan 24, 2010
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? What is trusted publishing?	No