NCBI database schema

Question

[Joseph Hughes]

I have been looking for a diagram representing the different NCBI databases that are available and how they link to each other, this is mainly to understand how best to make requests using E-utilities. I haven't been able to find anything so far by googling so I would be grateful if someone could point me in the right direction.

Answer 1

[Pierre Lindenbaum]

Eutils einfo gives you the list of the Entrez databases.

http://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/einfo.fcgi

adding a parameter gives you some insights about a specific database:

http://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/einfo.fcgi?db=pubmed

including the fields

<FullName>UID</FullName>
<Description>Unique number assigned to publication</Description>

and the "foreign keys" that you can query using Elink ...

<Link>
<Name>pubmed_dbvar</Name>
<Menu>dbVar</Menu>
<Description>Link from PubMed to dbVar</Description>
<DbTo>dbvar</DbTo>
</Link>

[5heikki]

The same with edirect:

einfo -dbs
einfo -db <DbName>