HaplotypeCaller

Hi,

I am adapting a two-year old pipeline, which includes UnifiedGenotyper to call variants. I would like to update this to the HaplotypeCaller. In the command for the UnifiedGenotyper there is an option --metrics_file. I cannot find reference to this in the GATK documentation - do you know what it is and whether I can use it with HaplotypeCaller as well?

Also, do I understand correctly that using HaplotypeCaller to call variants means you don't have to carry out the local realignment around indels step prior to this?

Thanks very much,

Kath