Guix

Entrez Direct (EDirect) is a method for accessing the National Center for Biotechnology Information's (NCBI) set of interconnected databases (publication, sequence, structure, gene, variation, expression, etc.) from a terminal. Functions take search terms from command-line arguments. Individual operations are combined to build multi-step queries. Record retrieval and formatting normally complete the process.

EDirect also provides an argument-driven function that simplifies the extraction of data from document summaries or other results that are returned in structured XML format. This can eliminate the need for writing custom software to answer ad hoc questions.