EDirect_EUtils_API_Cookbook

Just copy and paste commands off the page. Modify the search strings to work for you!

If there are things you want to be able to do with EDirect, but can't figure out how, you can ask the community for help by creating an Issue. See below, under "How to contribute," for more information.

To install EDirect, follow the instructions in "Entrez Direct: E-utilities on the Unix Command Line"

PLEASE UPDATE TO THE LATEST VERSION of E-Direct when possible to avoid a bug in older versions associated with the new NCBI API rate limit policy and API keys

How to contribute

You can contribute to this page through GitHub. (If you are not already viewing the GitHub version of this page, please click the "View on GitHub" button at the top of the page.) Using GitHub, you can create Issues or Pull Requests to contribute to the cookbook.

Create an Issue to:

Request an EDirect script to accomplish a task, citing specific use cases
Present a non-working EDirect script and ask for a fix
Identify non-working scripts listed below

Create a Pull Request to:

Add a working EDirect script to the list below
Modify or optimize an EDirect script listed below
Update the "Confirmed by:" date/version of a listed EDirect script with confirmation that it is still valid

Best Practices for EDirect:

Please keep to <50,000 expected hits (it simply won’t work)
Please do not run from multiple processors on a compute farm
Update to latest version

For more information and documentation on EDirect, please see:

Entrez Direct: E-utilities on the Unix Command Line
Insiders Guide to Accessing NLM Data: EDirect Overview

All items below come with no explicit or implicit warranty.

All code is as-is and produced for the bioinformatics community, from the bioinformatics community.

EDirect Scripts

Get all proteins from a nucleotide interval in a genome

Description (optional):
Written by: Peter Cooper Confirmed by: Ben Busby Databases: Taxonomy

efetch -db nuccore -id NZ_AZKP01000022.1 -seq_start 149413 -seq_stop 154038 -format gbc | xtract -insd CDS INSDInterval_from INSDInterval_to protein_id product

Get child taxids for a node in NCBI taxonomy

Description (optional): Note: Options for parsing nodes.dmp from NCBI Taxonomy are cited in issue #25, intentionally left open Written by: Scott McGinnis (11/17/2017)
Confirmed by:
Databases: Taxonomy

esearch -db taxonomy -query "vertebrata[orgn]" | efetch -db taxonomy -format docsum | xtract -pattern DocumentSummary -if Rank -equals family -element Id,Division,ScientificName,CommonName | more

Get all SRA runs for a BioProject based on an SRA Run ID

Description: Given an SRA Run ID (e.g. SRR532256) that is a member of a BioProject that has additional runs, retrieve all the other run IDs. This is a variant of the BioProject call below. Written by: Rob Edwards (1/11/2018) Confirmed by: Databases: SRA, BioProject

esearch -db sra -query "SRR532256" |  efetch -format docsum | xtract -pattern Runs -ACC @acc  -element "&ACC"

Get all SRA runs for a given BioProject

Description (optional):
Written by: Bob Sanders (3/22/2017)
Confirmed by:
Databases: SRA, BioProject

esearch -db bioproject -query "PRJNA356464" | elink -target sra | efetch -format docsum | \
xtract -pattern DocumentSummary -ACC @acc -block DocumentSummary -element "&ACC"

Get latitiude and longitude for SRA Datasets (e.g. outbreaks and metagenomes)

Description (optional):
Written by: BB, Mike D, Rob Edwards (4/12/2017)
Confirmed by:
Databases: SRA, BioSample

for i in $(cat sra_ids.txt); do ll=$(esearch -db sra -query $i | \
elink -target biosample | efetch -format docsum | \
xtract -pattern DocumentSummary -block Attribute -if Attribute@attribute_name -equals lat_lon -element Attribute); \
echo -e "$i\t$ll"; done

Get run sizes (in bp) for SRA Datasets

Description (optional): This retrieves the SRR id and the size in bp of the run from a file (ids.txt) of SRR IDs. You can also change bases to size_MBto get the size of the dataset in MB. Question: Does the size in MB include the sequence identifiers (i.e. the size of the file) or just the sequences? Written by: Rob Edwards (7/6/2017) Confirmed by: Databases: SRA

epost -db sra -input ids.txt -format acc | esummary -format runinfo -mode xml | xtract -pattern Row -element Run,bases

Gene Aliases

Description (optional):
Written by: NCBI Folks (12/14/2016)
Confirmed by:
Databases: gene

esearch -db gene -query "Liver cancer AND Homo sapiens" | \
efetch -format docsum | \
xtract -pattern DocumentSummary -element Name OtherAliases OtherDesignations

Genomic sequence fastas from RefSeq assembly for specified taxonomic designation

Description (optional):
Written by: NCBI Folks (12/14/2016)
Confirmed by: Peter Cooper (NCBI) and Wayne Matten (NCBI) (12/29/2016, v6.00)
Databases: assembly

wget `esearch -db assembly -query "Leptospira alstonii[ORGN] AND latest[SB]" | \
efetch -format docsum | \
xtract -pattern DocumentSummary -element FtpPath_RefSeq | \
awk -F"/" '{print $0"/"$NF"_genomic.fna.gz"}'`

(For larger sets of data the above may fail as wget may not accept a very large number of arguments.
The command below should work for all.)

esearch -db assembly -query "Leptospira alstonii[ORGN] AND latest[SB]" | \
efetch -format docsum | \
xtract -pattern DocumentSummary -element FtpPath_RefSeq | \
awk -F"/" '{print $0"/"$NF"_genomic.fna.gz"}' | \
xargs wget

Get organellar contigs from genbank

Description (optional):
Written by: NCBI Folks (12/14/2016)
Confirmed by:
Databases: nuccore

esearch -db nuccore -query "LKAM01" | efetch -format fasta

Get protein sequences from nucleotide accessions

Description (optional):
Written by: NCBI Folks (12/14/2016)
Confirmed by:
Databases: nuccore, protein

cat accs_file | epost -db nuccore -format acc | \
elink -target protein | efetch -format fasta

Complete taxonomy (KPCOFG) for taxids

Description (optional):
Written by: NCBI Folks (12/14/2016)
Confirmed by:
Databases: taxonomy

efetch -db taxonomy -id 9606,1234,81726 -format xml | \
xtract -pattern Taxon -tab "," -first TaxId ScientificName \
-group Taxon -KING "(-)" -PHYL "(-)" -CLSS "(-)" -ORDR "(-)" -FMLY "(-)" -GNUS "(-)" \
-block "*/Taxon" -match "Rank:kingdom" -KING ScientificName \
-block "*/Taxon" -match "Rank:phylum" -PHYL ScientificName \
-block "*/Taxon" -match "Rank:class" -CLSS ScientificName \
-block "*/Taxon" -match "Rank:order" -ORDR ScientificName \
-block "*/Taxon" -match "Rank:family" -FMLY ScientificName \
-block "*/Taxon" -match "Rank:genus" -GNUS ScientificName \
-group Taxon -tab "," -element "&KING" "&PHYL" "&CLSS" "&ORDR" "&FMLY" "&GNUS"

Obtain UniProt IDs from gene symbols

Description (optional):
Written by: NCBI Folks (12/14/2016)
Confirmed by:
Databases: gene, protein

esearch -db gene -query "tp53[preferred symbol] AND human[organism]" | \
elink -target protein | \
esummary | \
xtract -pattern DocumentSummary -element Caption SourceDb | \
grep -E '^[OPQ][0-9][A-Z0-9]{3}[0-9]\|^[A-NR-Z][0-9]([A-Z][A-Z0-9]{2}[0-9]){1,2}'

Retrieve Taxon IDs from list of genome accession numbers

Description (optional):
Written by: NCBI Folks (12/14/2016)
Confirmed by:
Databases: nuccore

cat genome_accession.txt | \
epost -db nuccore -format acc | \
esummary | \
xtract -pattern DocumentSummary -element AccessionVersion TaxId

Convert article DOI to PMID

Description (optional):
Written by: NCBI Folks (12/14/2016)
Confirmed by: Mike Davidson (NLM) (12/16/2016, v5.80)
Databases: pubmed

esearch -db pubmed -query "10.1111/j.1468-3083.2012.04708.x" | \
esummary | \
xtract -pattern DocumentSummary -block ArticleId -sep "\t" -tab "\n" -element IdType,Value | \
grep -E '^pubmed|doi'

Access organism specific meta-data from NCBI genome database

Description (optional):
Written by: NCBI Folks (12/14/2016)
Confirmed by:
Databases: genome, bioproject

esearch -db genome -query "22954[uid]" | \
elink -target bioproject | \
efetch -format xml | \
xtract -pattern DocumentSummary -element Salinity OxygenReq OptimumTemperature TemperatureRange Habitat

Get the status of records from PubMed search

Description (optional):
Written by: NCBI Folks (12/14/2016)
Confirmed by: Mike Davidson (NLM) (12/16/2016, v5.80)
Databases: pubmed

esearch -db pubmed -query "pde3a AND 2016[dp]" | \
esummary | \
xtract -pattern DocumentSummary -element Id RecordStatus

Conduct a PubMed search and retrieve the results as a list of PMIDs

Description (optional):
Written by: Mike Davidson (2/22/2017)
Confirmed by: Mike Davidson (NLM) (2/22/2017, v6.30)
Databases: pubmed

esearch -db pubmed -query "seasonal affective disorder" | efetch -format uid

Sort the hits by sequence length in nucleotide database

Description (optional):
Written by: NCBI Folks (12/14/2016)
Confirmed by:
Databases: nuccore

esearch -db nuccore -query "bacillus[orgn] AND biomol_rRNA[prop] AND 1500:1560[slen]" | \
esummary | \
xtract -pattern DocumentSummary -element Slen Extra | \
sort -rnk 1

Getting meta data from assembly

Description (optional):
Written by: NCBI Folks (12/14/2016)
Confirmed by:
Databases: assembly

esearch -db assembly -query "mammals[orgn] AND latest[filter]" | \
efetch -format docsum | \
xtract -pattern DocumentSummary -element Organism,SpeciesName,BioSampleAccn,LastMajorReleaseAccession \
-block Stat -if "@category" -equals chromosome_count -element Stat | \
grep -Pv "\t0$"

Fetch HSPs from a BLAST hit in FASTA

Description (optional):
Written by: NCBI Folks (12/14/2016)
Confirmed by:
Databases: nuccore

blastn -db nr -query in.fna -remote -outfmt "6 sacc sstart send" | \
xargs -n 3 sh -c 'efetch -db nuccore -id "$0" -seq_start "$1" -seq_stop "$2" -format fasta'

Get all Gene Ontology IDs for a given protein accession

Description (optional):
Written by: NCBI Folks (12/14/2016)
Confirmed by:
Databases: protien, biosystems

epost -db protein -id BAD92651.1 -format acc | \
elink -target biosystems | \
efetch -format docsum | \
xtract -pattern externalid -element externalid | \
awk '{if ($0 ~ /GO/) print $0}'

Get the ten most frequently-occurring authors for a set of articles

Description (optional): Searches PubMed for the string "traumatic brain injury athletes", restricts results to those published in 2015 and 2016, retrieves the full XML records for each of the search results, extracts the last name and initials of every author on every record, sorts the authors by frequency of occurrence in the results set, and presents the top ten most frequently-occurring authors, along with the number of times that author appeared.
Written by: Mike Davidson (NLM) (12/15/2016)
Confirmed by: Mike Davidson (NLM) (12/16/2016)
Databases: pubmed

esearch -db pubmed -query "traumatic brain injury athletes" -datetype PDAT -mindate 2015 -maxdate 2016 | \
efetch -format xml | \
xtract -pattern Author -sep " " -element LastName,Initials | \
sort-uniq-count-rank | \
head -n 10

Get the ten funding agencies who are most active in funding articles on a particular topic

Description (optional): Searches PubMed for the string "diabetes AND pregnancy", restricts results to those published in 2014 through 2016, retrieves the full XML records for each of the search results, extracts the funding agencies for every grant on every record, sorts the agencies by frequency of occurrence in the results set, and presents the top ten most frequently-occurring agencies, along with the number of times that agency appeared.
Written by: Mike Davidson (2/17/2017)
Confirmed by: Mike Davidson (NLM) (v6.30, 2/17/2017)
Databases: pubmed

esearch -db pubmed -query "diabetes AND pregnancy" -datetype PDAT -mindate 2014 -maxdate 2016 | \
efetch -format xml | \
xtract -pattern Grant -element Agency | \
sort-uniq-count-rank | \
head -n 10

Look up the publication date for thousands of PMIDs (option one)

Description (optional): Takes a file which contains a list of PMIDs (table_of_pubmed_ids) and uses cat to access the contents of the file, epost to post the PMIDs to the history server, efetch to retrieve the records and xtract to extract PMID and Publication Date.
Written by: NCBI Folks (12/15/2016)
Confirmed by: Mike Davidson (NLM) (v6.30, 2/17/2017)
Databases: pubmed

cat table_of_pubmed_ids | \
epost -db pubmed | \
efetch -format xml | \
xtract -pattern PubmedArticle -element MedlineCitation/PMID \
-block PubDate -sep " " -element Year,Month MedlineDate

Look up the publication date for thousands of PMIDs (option two)

Description (optional): Takes a file which contains a list of PMIDs (table_of_pubmed_ids) and epost -input to access the contents of the file and post the PMIDs to the history server, efetch to retrieve the records and xtract to extract PMID and Publication Date.
Written by: Mike Davidson (2/17/2017)
Confirmed by: Mike Davidson (NLM) (v6.30, 2/17/2017)
Databases: pubmed

epost -input table_of_pubmed_ids -db pubmed | \
efetch -format xml | \
xtract -pattern PubmedArticle -element MedlineCitation/PMID \
-block PubDate -sep " " -element Year,Month MedlineDate

Find the first author for a set of PubMed records

Description (optional): Outputs the PMID and first author's last name and initials for one or more PubMed records Written by: Mike Davidson (2/17/2017)
Confirmed by: Mike Davidson (NLM) (v6.30, 2/17/2017)
Databases: pubmed

efetch -db pubmed -id 16940437 -format xml | \
xtract -pattern PubmedArticle -element MedlineCitation/PMID \
-block Author -position first -sep " " -element LastName,Initials

Find the first author and any other authors who contributed equally for a set of PubMed records

Description (optional): Outputs the PMID and first author's last name and initials for one or more PubMed records. If the record indicates equal contributors to the first author, the last name and initials for all equal contributors will also be output, separated by commas.
Written by: Mike Davidson (10/27/2017)
Confirmed by: Mike Davidson (NLM) (v7.40, 10/27/2017)
Databases: pubmed

efetch -db pubmed -id 22358458,26877147 -format xml | \
xtract -pattern PubmedArticle -element MedlineCitation/PMID \
-block Author -position first -sep " " -tab ", " -element LastName,Initials -EQUAL Author@EqualContrib \
-block Author -if "+" -is-not 1 \
-and Author@EqualContrib -equals Y \
-and "&EQUAL" -equals Y \
-sep " " -tab ", " -element LastName,Initials

Download GEO Data from a BioProject Accession

Description (optional):
Written by: NCBI Folks (12/16/2016)
Confirmed by:
Databases: gds

esearch -db gds -query "PRJNA313294[ACCN]" | \
efetch -format docsum | \
xtract -pattern DocumentSummary -element FTPLink

Extract all MeSH Headings from a given PMID

Description (optional): Retrieves the PMID of a PubMed record, followed by a pipe-delimitted list of MeSH Descriptors for a PMID.
Written by: Mike Davidson (10/02/2017)
Confirmed by: Mike Davidson (NLM) (v7.30, 10/02/2017)
Databases: pubmed

efetch -db pubmed -id 24102982 -format xml | \
xtract -pattern PubmedArticle -tab "|" -element MedlineCitation/PMID \
-block MeshHeading -tab "|" -element DescriptorName

Extract all MeSH Headings and Subheadings from a given PMID

Description (optional): Retrieves the PMID of a PubMed record, followed by a pipe-delimitted list of MeSH Descriptors and Qualifiers for a PMID. Each Descriptor is followed by any attached qualifiers, separated by "/".
Written by: Mike Davidson (10/02/2017)
Confirmed by: Mike Davidson (NLM) (v7.30, 10/02/2017)
Databases: pubmed

efetch -db pubmed -id 24102982 -format xml | \
xtract -pattern PubmedArticle -tab "|" -element MedlineCitation/PMID \
-block MeshHeading -tab "|" -sep "/" -element DescriptorName,QualifierName

Search for articles by authors affiliated with a specific institution by matching two partial affiliation strings.

Description (optional): Searching PubMed for two affiliation strings ANDed together (e.g. "translational medicine[AD] AND thomas jefferson[AD]") will retrieve all records that have both strings listed somewhere in the record's Affiliation data, but does not require both strings be listed on the same author's affiliation. To generate a list of PMIDs where both strings are present in the same affiliation element, use the following script.
Written by: Mike Davidson (4/2/2018)
Confirmed by: Mike Davidson (NLM) (v8.10, 4/2/2018)
Databases: pubmed

esearch -db pubmed -query "translational medicine[ad] AND thomas jefferson[ad]" | \
efetch -format xml | \
xtract -pattern PubmedArticle -PMID MedlineCitation/PMID \
-block Affiliation -if Affiliation -contains "translational medicine" -and Affiliation -contains "thomas jefferson" \
-tab "\n" -element "&PMID" | \
sort -n | uniq

Search for PMC articles citing a gived PubMed articler; retrieve title, source, ID

Description: Retrieve information about all PMC articles (wihich have free fulltext available) which cite a gived PubMed article Written by: Lukas Wagner (08/16/2018) Databases: pubmed, pmc

esearch -db pubmed -query 23618408 | elink -name pubmed_pmc_refs -target pmc | \
efetch -format docsum | \
xtract -pattern DocumentSummary -element Title -element Source -block ArticleId -if "IdType" -equals pmcid -element Value

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EDirect_EUtils_API_Cookbook

How to contribute

Create an Issue to:

Create a Pull Request to:

Best Practices for EDirect:

EDirect Scripts

Get all proteins from a nucleotide interval in a genome

Get child taxids for a node in NCBI taxonomy

Get all SRA runs for a BioProject based on an SRA Run ID

Get all SRA runs for a given BioProject

Get latitiude and longitude for SRA Datasets (e.g. outbreaks and metagenomes)

Get run sizes (in bp) for SRA Datasets

Gene Aliases

Genomic sequence fastas from RefSeq assembly for specified taxonomic designation

Get organellar contigs from genbank

Get protein sequences from nucleotide accessions

Complete taxonomy (KPCOFG) for taxids

Obtain UniProt IDs from gene symbols

Retrieve Taxon IDs from list of genome accession numbers

Convert article DOI to PMID

Access organism specific meta-data from NCBI genome database

Get the status of records from PubMed search

Conduct a PubMed search and retrieve the results as a list of PMIDs

Sort the hits by sequence length in nucleotide database

Getting meta data from assembly

Fetch HSPs from a BLAST hit in FASTA

Get all Gene Ontology IDs for a given protein accession

Get the ten most frequently-occurring authors for a set of articles

Get the ten funding agencies who are most active in funding articles on a particular topic

Look up the publication date for thousands of PMIDs (option one)

Look up the publication date for thousands of PMIDs (option two)

Find the first author for a set of PubMed records

Find the first author and any other authors who contributed equally for a set of PubMed records

Download GEO Data from a BioProject Accession

Extract all MeSH Headings from a given PMID

Extract all MeSH Headings and Subheadings from a given PMID

Search for articles by authors affiliated with a specific institution by matching two partial affiliation strings.

Search for PMC articles citing a gived PubMed articler; retrieve title, source, ID