How to test a new method on TAXXI

To test a new method, you need to create your own method wrapper script similar to those in the benchmark/methods directory.

The script can be written in any convenient language, including a compiled language such as Java, C or C++, if you prefer. The requirement is that there is an executable file in methods/ with the name of your method. There is one command-line argument, which is the name of the test set, so it is invoked like this:

./my_method ten_16s_v4.97

The input data is the FASTA files for the test and training sets:

../testfa/ten_16s_v4.97
../trainfa/ten_16s_v4.97


Typically, the method script converts from TAXXI format to the native file format(s) for the method.

Output must be written to a file named ../pred/methodname/setname, e.g.:

../pred/my_method/ten_16s_v4.97

The format of the output file must be as follows: tab-separated text with two fields (1) the query label, (2) the prediction. The query label must exactly as the defline of the FASTA file for the test set, including the tax= annotation giving the correct taxonomy. The prediction must be formatted in the same way without the tax= or the closing semi-colon.