• Creating an NCBI Web Service Client Project
• SOAP E-Utilities API
• Examples

Creating an NCBI Web Service Client Project

The following walkthrough describes the process for accessing the NCBI E-Utilities Web service from an application created with Visual Basic.

• On the File menu, point to New, and then click Project to open the New Project dialog box.
• Expand the Visual Basic Projects folder.
• Click the Windows Application icon.
• Click OK to create the project.
• From the Toolbox, drag a Label and a Button to the design surface of Form1 and arrange them to your liking.
• On the Project menu, click Add Web Reference.
• In the URL box of the Add Web Reference dialog box, type the URL http://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/soap/eutils.wsdl
• Click the Go button to retrieve information about the XML Web service.
• In the Web reference name box, rename the Web reference to eUtils.
• Click Add Reference to add a Web reference for the target XML Web service.
  NOTE: Visual Studio generates uncompilable Visual Basic code for the current eUtilities WSDL. You will get multiple compilation error messages.
  To resolve this issue open Web References\eUtils\Reference.vb file by clicking on error message in Visual Studio and then do the following:
  • Replace all value varaibles with _value. To do this:
    • Press Ctrl+H to open rplace dialog
    • Type value in the Find what: edit box
    • Type _value in the Replace with: edit box
    • Check Match case and Match whole word check boxes.
    • Click Replace All button
    • Save changes
  • Replace all GetType(sub) code with GetType([sub]). To do this:
    • Press Ctrl+H to open rplace dialog
    • Type GetType(sub) in the Find what: edit box
    • Type GetType([sub]) in the Replace with: edit box
    • Check Match case and Match whole word check boxes.
    • Click Replace All button
    • Save changes
  • Find line of code Public notation As texmathNotation and replace it with Public notation As String.
    Then delete texmathNotation Enum declaration. Text to delete:
    

        '<remarks/>
        <System.Xml.Serialization.XmlTypeAttribute([Namespace]:="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/soap/eutils/efetch")>  _
        Public Enum texmathNotation
            
            '<remarks/>
            LaTeX
            
            '<remarks/>
            tex
            
            '<remarks/>
            TEX
            
            '<remarks/>
            TeX
        End Enum
    

• Double-click the button on Form1 to create an event-handling method for this button.
• In the button1_Click method enter the following code:

  ' eInfo utility returns a list of available databases Try Dim serv As New eUtils.eUtilsService Dim res As eUtils.eInfoResultType ' call NCBI EInfo utility res = serv.run_eInfo_MS("", "", "") ' results output Label1.Text = "" Dim i As Integer For i = 0 To res.DbList.Items.Length - 1 Label1.Text += res.DbList.Items(i) + Chr(10) Next i Catch Label1.Text = "Failed" End Try

• Build and run application.

SOAP E-Utilities API

Below is a list of methods we recommend for use with Microsoft Visual Basic.
SOAP interface provides user with two functionally identical sets of methods.
Methods which name ends with _MS are designed for use with Microsoft Visual Studio and SOAP Toolkit 3.0

Click on parameter to get its description.
Click on method name to see the example of use.

Public Function run_eGquery_MS( ByVal term As String, 
                                ByVal tool As String, 
                                ByVal email As String 
                              ) As GQueryResultType  
                                        
                                        

Public Function run_eInfo_MS( ByVal db As String, 
                              ByVal tool As String,
                              ByVal email As String
                            ) As eInfoResultType
                                      
                                      

Public Function run_eLink_MS( ByVal db As String, 
                              ByVal id() As String, 
                              ByVal reldate As String, 
                              ByVal mindate As String, 
                              ByVal maxdate As String, 
                              ByVal datetype As String, 
                              ByVal term As String, 
                              ByVal dbfrom As String, 
                              ByVal WebEnv As String, 
                              ByVal query_key As String, 
                              ByVal cmd As String, 
                              ByVal tool As String, 
                              ByVal email As String 
                            ) As eLinkResultType
                                     

Public Function run_eSearch_MS( ByVal db As String, 
                                ByVal term As String, 
                                ByVal WebEnv As String, 
                                ByVal query_key As String, 
                                ByVal usehistory As String, 
                                ByVal tool As String, 
                                ByVal email As String, 
                                ByVal field As String, 
                                ByVal reldate As String, 
                                ByVal mindate As String, 
                                ByVal maxdate As String, 
                                ByVal datetype As String, 
                                ByVal retstart As String, 
                                ByVal retmax As String, 
                                ByVal rettype As String, 
                                ByVal sort As String 
                              ) As eSearchResultType 
                                        
Public Function run_eSpell_MS( ByVal db As String, 
                               ByVal term As String, 
                               ByVal tool As String, 
                               ByVal email As String 
                             ) As eSpellResultType 
                                       
Public Function run_eSummary_MS( ByVal db As String, 
                                 ByVal id As String, 
                                 ByVal WebEnv As String, 
                                 ByVal query_key As String, 
                                 ByVal retstart As String, 
                                 ByVal retmax As String, 
                                 ByVal tool As String, 
                                 ByVal email As String 
                               ) As eSummaryResultType 
                                           
Public Function run_eFetch_MS( ByVal db As String, 
                               ByVal id As String, 
                               ByVal WebEnv As String, 
                               ByVal query_key As String, 
                               ByVal tool As String, 
                               ByVal email As String, 
                               ByVal retstart As String, 
                               ByVal retmax As String, 
                               ByVal rettype As String, // *rettype for Molecular Biology Databases 
                               ByVal strand As String, 
                               ByVal seq_start As String, 
                               ByVal seq_stop As String, 
                               ByVal complexity As String, 
                               ByVal report As String 
                             ) As eFetchResultType
                                

Examples

Call EGQuery

Call EInfo

Call ELink

Call ESearch

Call ESpell

Call ESummary

Call EFetch