Pubmedly

This gem provides a Pubmedly::Client with methods that get data from the NCBI's Pubmed database using their eutils APIs.

Furthermore, this gem provides a Pubmedly::Pubmed class that makes interacting with the eutils APIs easier by parsing the XML responses into useful Ruby objects.

You will need an API key to use this gem; doing this is simple and described with context here.

Requirements:

• Ruby 3.0+

Install the gem and add to the application's Gemfile by executing:

$ bundle add pubmedly

If bundler is not being used to manage dependencies, install the gem by executing:

$ gem install pubmedly

Pubmedly::Client has methods synonymous with the NCBI's eutils API, and the raw web responses are returned with data in XML (default) or JSON.

client = Pubmedly::Client.new("<YOUR_NCBI_API_KEY>")
#<Pubmedly::Client:0x00000001089768d8 @api_key="<YOUR_NCBI_API_KEY>">

response = client.search("Bifidobacterium longum", retmax: 10)
#<Net::HTTPOK 200 OK readbody=true>

puts response.body
#<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
#<!DOCTYPE eSearchResult PUBLIC "-//NLM//DTD esearch 20060628//EN" "https://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/eutils/dtd/20060628/esearch.dtd">
#<eSearchResult><Count>2321</Count><RetMax>10</RetMax><RetStart>0</RetStart><IdList>
#<Id>37180228</Id>
#<Id>37176158</Id>
#<Id>37175970</Id>
#<Id>37174650</Id>
#<Id>37172455</Id>
# ...

response = client.fetch(37180228)
#<Net::HTTPOK 200 OK readbody=true>

puts response.body
#<?xml version="1.0" ?>
#<!DOCTYPE PubmedArticleSet PUBLIC "-//NLM//DTD PubMedArticle, 1st January 2023//EN" "https://dtd.nlm.nih.gov/ncbi/pubmed/out/pubmed_230101.dtd">
#<PubmedArticleSet>
#  <PubmedArticle>
#    <MedlineCitation Status="PubMed-not-MEDLINE" Owner="NLM" IndexingMethod="Automated">
#      <PMID Version="1">37180228</PMID>
# ...

Pubmedly::Pubmed wraps the NCBI API methods implemented in Pubmedly::Client to make the return types more useful.

pubmed = Pubmedly::Pubmed.new("<YOUR_NCBI_API_KEY>")
#<Pubmedly::Pubmed:0x0000000108a97d20 @client=#<Pubmedly::Client:0x0000000108a97c58 @api_key="<YOUR_NCBI_API_KEY>">>

After checking out the repo, run bin/setup to install dependencies. Then, run rake spec to run the tests. You can also run bin/console for an interactive prompt that will allow you to experiment. for convenience the console will initialize with @client and @pubmed objects if NCBI_API_KEY is defined in your environment.

To install this gem onto your local machine, run bundle exec rake install.

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/robsimpsondev/pubmedly. This project is intended to be a safe, welcoming space for collaboration, and contributors are expected to adhere to the code of conduct.

With write access to the main branch one can release a new version by updating the version number in version.rb, and running bundle exec rake release, which will create a git tag for the version, push git commits and the created tag, and push the .gem file to rubygems.org.

This project uses Semantic Versioning.

Given a version number MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH, increment the:

• MAJOR version when you make incompatible API changes
• MINOR version when you add functionality in a backward compatible manner
• PATCH version when you make backward compatible bug fixes

Additional labels for pre-release and build metadata are available as extensions to the MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH format.

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.

Everyone interacting in the Pubmedly project's codebases, issue trackers, chat rooms and mailing lists is expected to follow the code of conduct.