DOKK / manpages / debian 13 / ncbi-entrez-direct / nquire.1.en
NQUIRE(1) NCBI Entrez Direct User's Manual NQUIRE(1)

nquire - query NCBI Entrez Utilities, other parameter-based web services, or FTP

nquire [-help] [-ftp host dir [file]] [-url URL] [-get [URL]] [-len URL] [-lst host dir] [-dir host dir] [-eutils name] [-dwn host dir [file]] [-asp host dir [file]] [-ncbi|-eutils|-pubchem|-pugrest|-pugview|-datasets] [component ...] [-tag value ...] [-examples] [-version]

nquire performs raw HTTP(S) queries against web services such as NCBI E-Utilities that take GET or POST parameters, or downloads or listings from FTP and Aspera servers. (Aspera support requires installing proprietary client software.)

Print usage information, complete with a few examples, some additionally illustrating the use of xtract(1).

Use FTP instead of HTTP. The shell implementation accepts a filename on the command line only when invoked from a (pseudo)terminal, and otherwise reads filenames from standard input.
Base URL for external search.
Use HTTP(S) GET instead of POST.
Content length of HTTP file.
Lists contents of FTP site.
FTP listing with file sizes.

Like -ftp, but saves contents to correspondingly named files in the current directory.
Like -dwn, but uses Aspera's proprietary client if installed.

-url Shortcuts

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
https://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils
https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/rest/pug
https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/rest/pug_view
https://api.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/datasets/v2alpha

Add /component to the base URL. (Must precede any tag/value pairs.)
Add &tag=value,... to the base URL. (Must follow any simple components.)

Examples of advanced queries.
Print version number.

archive-nihocc(1), archive-nlmnlp(1), archive-nmcds(1), archive-pids(1), archive-pmc(1), archive-pubmed(1), archive-taxonomy(1), cit2pmid(1), curl(1), download-flatfile(1), download-ncbi-data(1), download-ncbi-software(1), download-pmc(1), download-pubmed(1), ecollect(1), edict(1), efetch(1), efilter(1), einfo(1), elink(1), epost(1), esearch(1), refseq-nm-cds(1), skip-if-file-exists(1), wget(1), xtract(1).

2025-05-26 NCBI