A rather bizarre but flexible format as generated by the print_horizontal/pattern option in multalign!!
#Pattern !start of pattern description Nelm, Nchar !Number of elements in pattern/number of characters/element(10,9) E1 !Pattern element 1 (eg. AAAGGGCCC) (80a1) F1 !Flexible Gap range 1 (eg. 0,3) " " etc EN !Nth pattern element - this ends pattern description #Details !Details of the first recorded pattern match ID !Protein Identifier 10 chars Title !Protein title - 80 chars Len !Protein Length - 80 chars max An,Pn !Sequence No, Pattern alignement Number Score !Real number - max 80 chars #Sequence !Start of sequence identifier one letter code sequence 80a1 format #Match !Description of the match follows 1,Pos !N,Pos - N is the pattern element, Pos is the sequence element 2,Pos !which it is aligned. If the pattern overhangs, then N is 0. N,Pos #Details !Start of next pattern alignment, or end of file This format file is output by MULTALIGN in response to the print_horizontal/pattern=fname command Note: The An,Pn refer to the An(th) sequence aligned to the pattern, and the Pn(th) alignment of the pattern to this sequence - thus 1,1 refers to the top scoring pattern match with sequence 1, 1,2 the second best pattern match to seq 1 etc.