How to: Automate BLAST searches performed on NCBI servers

Starting with a custom script that access the NCBI Web BLAST Service...

  1. Review the BLAST URL programming interface documentation for information on commands used to submit BLAST searches.
  2. Automated requests should be submitted no more than one every three seconds and should be restricted to weekends or between 9 pm and 5 am Eastern Time weekdays for large numbers of searches.
  3. The demonstration script web_blast.pl provides an example of how to use the URL interface.