[Biopython-dev] KEGG support

[Brad Chapman]

Renato;
Great idea to work with the KEGG parsers. Very happy to have someone
tackling this.

> According to the http://www.genome.jp/kegg/docs/weblink.html page they
> do mention a REST like URL for generic entries, pathways and brite. But
> it seems more useful for external linking than as an API. I couldn't
> even figure out how to return the information in plaintext instead of
> the default HTML. About SOAPpy, I've nothing against it besides the fact
> that when I first tried I had few problems. Anyway it was a long time
> ago... I've only played with suds since.

My suggestion would be to use the TogoWS REST interface

http://togows.dbcls.jp/site/en/rest.html

It makes getting records crazy easy. There are tons of examples,
but for GENES, here's how to get the plain text record:

http://togows.dbcls.jp/entry/gene/eco:b0002

If you really want to use SOAP, my experience has been best with
suds. However, the complexities of SOAP are really not worth it if
you can get REST approaches to do what you need.

Hope this helps,
Brad