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fix(macOS): spawn readFilesCommand via shell (posix_spawnp) so gzipped input works#2693

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fix(macOS): spawn readFilesCommand via shell (posix_spawnp) so gzipped input works#2693
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BenjaminDEMAILLE:fix/macos-readfilescommand-spawn

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Problem

On macOS, alignment with --readFilesCommand (gzcat, gunzip -c, zcat, ...) fails with:

EXITING: because of fatal EXECUTION error: Failed spawning readFilesCommand
2: No such file or directory

so gzipped input cannot be read (see #2663). Linux is fine; reverting to 2.7.10b works; plain (uncompressed) FASTQ works.

Root cause

The generated readsCommand script gets a #! shebang only when --sysShell is set; by default (sysShell == -) it has none. The old vfork() + execlp() path worked because execvp falls back to /bin/sh on ENOEXEC, but posix_spawn (used by the conda build) has no such fallback, so exec of the shebang-less script fails.

Separately, vfork() + exit(0) is undefined behavior: exit() in a vfork child flushes the parent's stdio and runs atexit handlers in the shared address space, and it reported success even when exec failed.

Fix

Spawn the script explicitly as <shell> <script> via posix_spawnp, using --sysShell when set, else /bin/sh. No shebang or ENOEXEC fallback is needed, and posix_spawnp is the safe, portable process-creation primitive on Linux and macOS.

Verification

Native arm64 build, with plain FASTQ, --readFilesCommand 'gunzip -c', and --readFilesCommand gzcat: 5/5 reads in all cases.

Closes #2663.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

…obin#2663)

On macOS, alignment with --readFilesCommand (gzcat, gunzip -c, zcat ...) failed
with 'Failed spawning readFilesCommand / No such file or directory', so gzipped
input could not be read (works on Linux, and reverting to 2.7.10b worked).

Two root causes:
- The generated readsCommand script gets a #! shebang only when --sysShell is
  set; by default (sysShell '-') it has none. The old vfork()+execlp() path
  happened to work because execvp falls back to /bin/sh on ENOEXEC, but
  posix_spawn (used by the bioconda build) has no such fallback, so exec failed.
- vfork()+exit(0) is undefined behavior: exit() in a vfork child flushes the
  parent's stdio and runs atexit handlers in the shared address space, and it
  reported success even when exec failed.

Spawn the script explicitly as '<shell> <script>' via posix_spawnp, using
--sysShell when set else /bin/sh. No shebang or ENOEXEC fallback is needed, and
posix_spawnp is the safe, portable process-creation primitive on Linux and
macOS.

Verified on native arm64 with plain FASTQ, --readFilesCommand 'gunzip -c', and
--readFilesCommand gzcat: 5/5 reads in all cases.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
@BenjaminDEMAILLE
BenjaminDEMAILLE marked this pull request as ready for review June 26, 2026 12:56
birdingman0626 added a commit to birdingman0626/STAR-Cross that referenced this pull request Jun 29, 2026
…ndian support (#7)

* fix(macos): spawn readFilesCommand via posix_spawnp

The POSIX path used vfork()+execlp()+exit(0) to run the generated
readsCommand script. On macOS this fails ("Failed spawning
readFilesCommand", upstream issue alexdobin#2663) because the script has no
shebang and posix_spawn-style exec has no ENOEXEC->/bin/sh fallback;
calling exit() in a vfork child is also undefined behavior.

Replace with posix_spawnp invoking "<shell> <script>" explicitly, with
proper error checking. POSIX-only branch; the Windows system()-based
path is unchanged. Ported from upstream PR alexdobin#2693.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* feat: big-endian support with guarded little-endian fast path

STAR read the genome, suffix array and packed arrays through native
uint*/uint128* casts, assuming little-endian byte order, which caused
"next index is smaller than previous" failures on big-endian hosts
(s390x, ppc64).

Add byteOrder.h with loadUintLE/storeUintLE helpers and route the four
endian-sensitive sites (PackedArray::operator[]/writePacked,
funCompareSuffixes, funCalcSAiFromSA) through them. The helpers are
guarded by STAR_BIG_ENDIAN: little-endian builds keep the original
single-instruction native load (zero performance/behavior change), and
only known big-endian compiles take the portable byte-wise path. The
existing MSVC byte-access path in funCalcSAiFromSA is reused for BE.

The byte-wise implementation is exposed by name and unit-tested
(test_byteOrder.cpp) so the BE algorithm is validated on the LE CI
runner. Ported from the patch in upstream issue alexdobin#2690.

Note: compile-validated only; CI has no big-endian runner.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* feat: referenceless CRAM output (--outSAMtype CRAM)

Add CRAM as an output container. STAR produces its BAM via the proven
output path, then transcodes it to referenceless CRAM at finalization
(cramOutput.cpp, using bundled HTSlib with CRAM_OPT_NO_REF, so no
external reference FASTA is required). On conversion failure the
original BAM is kept and the run continues.

- Parameters_runtimeSetup: accept "CRAM" as outSAMtype[0], reusing the
  BAM Unsorted/SortedByCoordinate logic; set outCRAMbool and CRAM names.
- STAR.cpp: transcode Aligned.out.bam / Aligned.sortedByCoord.out.bam
  to .cram after wiggle output, removing the intermediate BAM.
- Hot per-record output code is untouched; the transcriptome BAM stays
  BAM for RSEM/Salmon. CRAM is incompatible with --outStd.
- WebUI: CRAM options in the outSAMtype dropdown, .cram artifacts and
  MIME type.
- Registered cramOutput in CMake build.

Implemented properly rather than porting the incomplete upstream draft
PR alexdobin#2670 (which wrote a NULL header and rerouted the working BAM path).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* build: Makefile ARM64/macOS/libomp parity and cramOutput

Port the platform-detection from upstream PR alexdobin#2694 to the Makefile (CI
uses CMake, which already handles ARM64; this is for `make` users):
- detect UNAME_S/UNAME_M; select -mavx2 on x86_64, -march=armv8-a+simd
  on ARM64/AArch64
- macOS + Apple clang OpenMP: -Xpreprocessor -fopenmp + libomp include,
  -lomp at link; add native STARforMac target (dynamic libomp)
- portable BSD/macOS date fallback for the build timestamp
- add cramOutput.o to OBJECTS

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* docs: document CRAM output, ARM64/macOS, and big-endian support

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>

---------

Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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GA fails on macOS due to Failed spawning readFilesCommand

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