[BioRuby] count parameter in Bio::PubMed.esearch

[Kaustubh Patil]

Hi,

Here is a suggestion/feature for Bio::PubMed.esearch.

Currently it is not possible to use rettype=count (through options hash) 
in Bio::PubMed.esearch.

To get this feature replace the following line in pubmed.rb (approx. 
line 97)

result = result.scan(/<Id>(.*?)<\/Id>/m).flatten

by

if(hash['rettype']=="count")
        result = result.scan(/<Count>(.*?)<\/Count>/m).flatten
        result = result[0]
else
        result = result.scan(/<Id>(.*?)<\/Id>/m).flatten
end


and it will return the count as a string, which can be easily converted 
to an integer by "result.to_i"

I hope it is useful.

Cheers,
Kaustubh Patil

PS: for more details on Entrez esearch parameters, please refer to;

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query/static/esearch_help.html