Hello everybody, > Subject: RE: [Biojava-l] taxanomical API > Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2002 08:40:56 +1300 > From: "Schreiber, Mark" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: "Matthew Pocock" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, > > Hi - > > I had some prior experiences with the NCBI taxonomy database. If the > EMBL one is pretty much the same then it would strongly get my vote > > Mark Schreiber
The EBI uses the NCBI taxonomy database for its taxons. The data in the databases is identical. With regard to the API: <http://www.Species2000.org/> was looking at CORBA technology to define interfaces for its taxonomic data (no idea of its current status though): "The Quiet Revolution: Biodiversity Informatics and the Internet." Frank A. Bisby Science 2000 September 29; 289: 2309-2312" Also, the EBI has been making its copy of the NCBI taxonomy server available through a CORBA server for the last 5 years(!): http://corba.ebi.ac.uk/EMBL_taxonomy.html The interface is defined in the IDL and is very simple (though we do include a method to return a translation table for an organism): Taxonomy API: http://corba.ebi.ac.uk/idl/taxonomy.txt Errors, exceptions, etc. are defined in a common types module that is used by a number of EBI CORBA servers: Types: http://corba.ebi.ac.uk/idl/types.txt Documentation about the interfaces: http://corba.ebi.ac.uk/idl/doc/taxonomy.html The IOR: http://corba.ebi.ac.uk/EMBL/IOR/Taxonomy_new.IOR Regardless of people's views on CORBA technology as a transport protocol, I do hope some of the ideas & concepts about *data modelling* in these respective IDL's are examined. As a BioJava API for taxonomy data emerges, I'll look to getting a compliant CORBA/SOAP server running and/or facade classes. Best wishes, Alan. -- ============================================================ Alan J. Robinson, D.Phil. Tel:+44-(0)1223 494444 European Bioinformatics Institute Fax:+44-(0)1223 494468 EMBL Outstation - Hinxton Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wellcome Trust Genome Campus Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK http://industry.ebi.ac.uk/~alan/ ============================================================ _______________________________________________ Biojava-l mailing list - [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://biojava.org/mailman/listinfo/biojava-l
