Searching PubMed with Biopython

search_biopython.py

# you need to install Biopython:
# pip install biopython

# Full discussion:
# https://marcobonzanini.wordpress.com/2015/01/12/searching-pubmed-with-python/

from Bio import Entrez

def search(query):
    Entrez.email = 'your.email@example.com'
    handle = Entrez.esearch(db='pubmed', 
                            sort='relevance', 
                            retmax='20',
                            retmode='xml', 
                            term=query)
    results = Entrez.read(handle)
    return results

def fetch_details(id_list):
    ids = ','.join(id_list)
    Entrez.email = 'your.email@example.com'
    handle = Entrez.efetch(db='pubmed',
                           retmode='xml',
                           id=ids)
    results = Entrez.read(handle)
    return results

if __name__ == '__main__':
    results = search('fever')
    id_list = results['IdList']
    papers = fetch_details(id_list)
    for i, paper in enumerate(papers):
        print("%d) %s" % (i+1, paper['MedlineCitation']['Article']['ArticleTitle']))
    # Pretty print the first paper in full
    #import json
    #print(json.dumps(papers[0], indent=2, separators=(',', ':')))

Have you encountered the issue that the server will cut you off after querying ~2000 IDs?

Should the Line 32, 33 be changed into:
for i, paper in enumerate(papers['PubmedArticle']): print("%d) %s" % (i+1, paper['MedlineCitation']['Article']['ArticleTitle']))

@ThitherShore is correct - I can verify that suggested fix makes this gist functional.

@hongtao510 we download 100 articles in an infinite loop. We see no blocking info since one week.

Please update code with ThitherShore's comment.

Whenever there is a "+" sing in the content (for example ArticleTitle or AbstractText), it returns a string only after the "+" sign. Does anyone have a way to get around this?
e.g. The title "The Clinicopathological and Prognostic Implications of FoxP3+ Regulatory T Cells in Patients with Colorectal Cancer: A Meta-Analysis." will return "+ Regulatory T Cells in Patients with Colorectal Cancer: A Meta-Analysis"

It looks like the format returned by the efetch method is slightly different now

If you replace papers with papers[‘PubmedArticle’] you should get the list or papers,

@ThitherShore is correct we should use enumerate(papers['PubmedArticle']) instead of enumerate(papers)

for line 36

print(json.dumps(papers['PubmedArticle'][0], indent=2, separators=(',', ':')))
instead of:
print(json.dumps(papers[0], indent=2, separators=(',', ':')))