get() function fatal error while using Entrez Eutilities

Question

[vigprasud]

I am trying to use Entrez'z Eutilitiy for a text mining module. I tried using the sample snippets from the pubmed website.

use LWP::Simple;

# Download PubMed records that are indexed in MeSH for both asthma and 
# leukotrienes and were also published in 2009.

$db = 'pubmed';
$query = 'asthma[mesh]+AND+leukotrienes[mesh]+AND+2009[pdat]';

#assemble the esearch URL
$base = 'http://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/';
$url = $base . "esearch.fcgi?db=$db&term=$query&usehistory=y";

#post the esearch URL
$output = get($url);

I got get() function Fatal Error. I have the perl LWD module installed But I am still unable to solve this error. Can someone suggest me any error checking pointers?

[Pierre Lindenbaum]

a problem with the proxy ?

[vigprasud]

I dont see a problem with proxy..I let all the proxys access while installing the module and the firewall is also off.

[vigprasud]

Also If I check in the command line with this command

perl -MLWP::Simple -e 'getprint "http://www.sn.no"'

I get the XML version of the page. It is installed correctly but not working with php

Answer 1

[c0mput3rxz]

NCBI updates to https. It is important to update calls to use https for example your base would be

$base = 'https://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/';