Entrez¶ ↑

**This gem is no longer maintained.**

Entrez is a simple API for making HTTP requests to Entrez utilities (eutils: eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/).

Installation¶ ↑

gem install entrez

or if you use Bundler:

# Gemfile
gem 'entrez'

It requires httparty.

See ‘Email & Tool’ section below for setup.

Usage¶ ↑

Supported Utilities

• EFetch

• EInfo

• ESearch

• ESummary

Not yet implemented

• EPost

• ELink

• EGQuery

• ESpell

You can copy/paste the resulting following request URLs into a browser to see what the response would be.

EFetch, ESummary¶ ↑

args:

• database

• params hash (optional)

  Entrez.EFetch(‘snp’, id: 123, retmode: :xml) #=> makes request to eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/efetch.fcgi?db=snp&id=9268480&retmode=xml. #=> returns XML document with SNP rs9268480 data.

ESummary takes the same arguments.

ESearch¶ ↑

args:

• database

• search terms (hash will be converted to term+AND+another_term notation. It can also be a string literal.)

• params hash (optional)

  Entrez.ESearch(‘genomeprj’, {WORD: ‘hapmap’, SEQS: ‘inprogress’}, retmode: :xml) #=> makes request to eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/esearch.fcgi?db=genomeprj&term=hapmap[WORD]+AND+inprogress[SEQS]&retmode=xml. #=> returns XML document with list of ids of genome projects that match the searc term criteria. #=> i.e. genome projects that have ‘hapmap’ in the description and whose sequencing status is ‘inprogress’.

The response has a convenience method to retrieve the parsed ids.

response = Entrez.ESearch('genomeprj', {WORD: 'hapmap', SEQS: 'inprogress'}, retmode: :xml)
response.ids #=> [1, 2, ...]

Customized Queries¶ ↑

You can build your own customized queries if you have something more complex with ANDs and ORs. Use Entrez.convert_search_term_hash() to help you. It converts a hash into a valid Entrez search string properly joined with the operator of your choosing. If you pass in the OR operator, the returned search string will be wrapped in a set of parentheses.

EInfo¶ ↑

args:

• database

• params hash (optional)

  Entrez.EInfo(‘gene’, retmode: :xml) #=> makes request to eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/einfo.fcgi?db=gene. #=> returns XML document with list of searchable fields for gene database.

Email & Tool¶ ↑

NCBI asks that you supply the tool you are using and your email. The Entrez gem uses ‘ruby’ as the tool. Email is obtained from an environment variable ENTREZ_EMAIL on your computer. I set mine in my ~/.bash_profile:

export ENTREZ_EMAIL='[email protected]'

NCBI query limits¶ ↑

NCBI recommends no more than 3 URL requests per second: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK25497/#chapter2.Usage_Guidelines_and_Requiremen This gem respects this limit. It will delay the next request if the last 3 have been made within 1 second. The amount of delay time is no more than what is necessary to make the next request “respectful”.

Ignore query limits for testing¶ ↑

If you use something like FakeWeb for testing, and you don’t want to slow down your tests, tell Entrez to ignore the query limit:

require 'entrez/spec_helpers'
it 'does something that I promise will not bother NCBI' do
  Entrez.ignore_query_limit do
    # Anything that happens within this block will ignore the query limit.
    # So make sure you do not actually request queries from NCBI.
    # For example:
    FakeWeb.allow_net_connect = false
  end
  # Query limits are respected again outside of the block.
end

Compatibility¶ ↑

test.rubygems.org/gems/entrez