metabat creates strange broken softlink?

[Former user]

Metabat v 2.13 creates a strange broken softlink everytime We try to run it: e.g.: final_complete_merging_NCBIvsMGRAST.fasta.depth.txt.BUILDING -> 'iab-coruscant 31389' why is this link created? Is it used for anythin important (bacause nothing can be written into or read from there)? Will my run fail if this link is broken? Or is this simply a kind of "flag" file, whose sole function is not to record anything but simply to exist?

[Rob Egan]

This is not a bug. It is a flag which is used as a semaphore that prevents multiple instances of runMetaBat.sh, executing within the same directory, from clobbering the generated prerequisite depths file… only one of the instances will actually generate the depths file, and all instances will use the same one.

If you abort or the process dies or is killed then the symlink should be removed. It is implemented as a symlink that describes the name of the machine and process id of the first instance. You can remove it if you are sure that no other instances are executing but it should have no impact.