Can We Access David Programmatically ?

Question

[Radhouane Aniba]

Well,

the question says it all, I am talking about David (NIH)

Answer 1

[Pierre Lindenbaum]

it seems that there is an API: http://david.abcc.ncifcrf.gov/content.jsp?file=DAVID_API.html

[Mikael Huss]

What prevents you from using Perl (or Java, etc.) to fetch results through this mechanism? You asked how to access DAVID programmatically, and you can do it using this API.

[Radhouane Aniba]

I've seen it but for me this is not an API , playing with what comes after the url I don't call that API, for me API is allowing people to write perl/java/whatever wrapper to access a db :/

[David Quigley]

You want the DAVID knowledgebase, then go get it: http://david.abcc.ncifcrf.gov/content.jsp?file=/knowledgebase/DAVID_knowledgebase.html . You're better off writing a query through the web interface and leaving the unpleasant work of maintaining the database to the people who are doing it for you for free.

[Radhouane Aniba]

I feel like an agressive Tone, but anyway thx for your answers

Answer 2

[Chris Miller]

I wrote a bare-bones API in Ruby a while back that interfaces with the website: https://github.com/chrisamiller/davidapi

I haven't used it in a year or two, so I'll provide it with no warranty. Wrappers like this that rely on scraping are rather brittle, and I'm not sure if they've changed anything on the site that would affect it. You're welcome to give it a shot, and if it doesn't work, I may be able to spare a little time to help fix it.