Locating and Using Data from dbSNP’s FTP Site

This section contains FAQs that provide general information about how dbSNP’s FTP site is organized, as well as FAQs about the different SNP data reports housed in dbSNP, what data those reports contain, how to find specific data in these reports, and how to retrieve, decompress, and in some cases, parse the data. There are also FAQs about missing FTP files, how the data contained in the FTP site is updated, and FAQs that show you where to access an online tutorial of e-utilities or sign up for a data retrieval course at NCBI.

To begin searching this section of the dbSNP FAQ Archive, you can:

Enter your search word(s) text in the text box at the top of the page and click on the “Go” button

OR

Click on any of the “dbSNP FTP” sub-categories listed in the “Contents” section below to navigate to the sub-category of your choice. Once you are in the sub-category, you will be presented with a grey box containing the questions for the sub-category you selected. Clicking on a question in this list will allow you to navigate to the answer.

Contents

• Navigating in dbSNP’s FTP Site
• Finding Specific Data in dbSNP’s FTP Files
• SNP Report Files
• dbSNP Data Dictionary
• Missing FTP Files
• Downloading From dbSNP’s FTP Site
• Decompressing Data Obtained from dbSNP’s FTP Site
• Parsing Data Obtained from dbSNP’s FTP Site
• Discrepancies between dbSNP Summary Data and FTP Data
• Discrepancies between Cluster Report Data and FTP Data Contents
• Discrepancies between FTP Documentation and Data Dictionary
• Direct Queries of dbSNP’s Database Server
• Updating dbSNP’s FTP data
• Eutils (E-utilities)