[BioPython] NCBIWWW.blast(): how to get text formatted output

[Peter Maxwell]

On Friday, September 19, 2003, at 04:15 AM, Frank Kauff wrote:
> does anybody know which is the correct value for format_type in
> NCBIWWW.blast() to get a plain text output?

'Text' , but last time I tried (a long while ago) NCBIWWW.blast() lost 
it somewhere along the way, which one reason why I wrote 
http://www.biolateral.com.au/download/NCBI.py.

BTW if tempted to use my version as-is change the rate at which it 
polls for the result (time.sleep(5) to time.sleep(30) or something).  
The web server log watchers at NCBI don't like excessive polling.

> but still it returns html. And maybe I'm blind, but is there any place
> in the web which lists exactly the different options?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/BLAST/Doc/urlapi.html

Cheers,
  -- Peter Maxwell