NAME

Bio::DB::NCBIHelper - A collection of routines useful for queries to NCBI databases.

SYNOPSIS

 Do not use this module directly.
 # get a Bio::DB::NCBIHelper object somehow
 my $seqio = $db->get_Stream_by_acc(['MUSIGHBA1']);
 foreach my $seq ( $seqio->next_seq ) {
  # process seq
 }

DESCRIPTION

Provides a single place to setup some common methods for querying NCBI web databases. This module is just centralizes the methods for constructing a URL for querying NCBI GenBank and NCBI GenPept and the common HTML stripping done in postprocess_data().

FEEDBACK

Mailing Lists

User feedback is an integral part of the evolution of this and other Bioperl modules. Send your comments and suggestions preferably to one of the Bioperl mailing lists. Your participation is much appreciated.

  bioperl-l@bioperl.org              - General discussion
  http://bioperl.org/MailList.shtml  - About the mailing lists

Reporting Bugs

Report bugs to the Bioperl bug tracking system to help us keep track the bugs and their resolution. Bug reports can be submitted via email or the web:

  bioperl-bugs@bio.perl.org
  http://bio.perl.org/bioperl-bugs/

AUTHOR - Jason Stajich

Email jason@chg.mc.duke.edu

APPENDIX

The rest of the documentation details each of the object methods. Internal methods are usually preceded with a _

get_params

 Title   : get_params
 Usage   : my %params = $self->get_params($mode)
 Function: Returns key,value pairs to be passed to NCBI database
           for either 'batch' or 'single' sequence retrieval method
 Returns : a key,value pair hash
 Args    : 'single' or 'batch' mode for retrieval

default_format

 Title   : default_format
 Usage   : my $format = $self->default_format
 Function: Returns default sequence format for this module
 Returns : string
 Args    : none

get_request

 Title   : get_request
 Usage   : my $url = $self->get_request
 Function: HTTP::Request
 Returns : 
 Args    : %qualifiers = a hash of qualifiers (ids, format, etc)

get_Stream_by_batch

  Title   : get_Stream_by_batch
  Usage   : $seq = $db->get_Stream_by_batch($ref);
  Function: Retrieves Seq objects from Entrez 'en masse', rather than one
            at a time.  For large numbers of sequences, this is far superior
            than get_Stream_by_[id/acc]().
  Example :
  Returns : a Bio::SeqIO stream object
  Args    : $ref : either an array reference, a filename, or a filehandle
            from which to get the list of unique ids/accession numbers.

postprocess_data

 Title   : postprocess_data
 Usage   : $self->postprocess_data ( 'type' => 'string',
                                     'location' => \$datastr);
 Function: process downloaded data before loading into a Bio::SeqIO
 Returns : void
 Args    : hash with two keys - 'type' can be 'string' or 'file'
                              - 'location' either file location or string 
                                           reference containing data

request_format

 Title   : request_format
 Usage   : my ($req_format, $ioformat) = $self->request_format;
           $self->request_format("genbank");
           $self->request_format("fasta");
 Function: Get/Set sequence format retrieval. The get-form will normally not
           be used outside of this and derived modules.
 Returns : Array of two strings, the first representing the format for
           retrieval, and the second specifying the corresponding SeqIO format.
 Args    : $format = sequence format