>>One of the shortcomings of BLAST is that it only reads its own format
>>libraries.
>>Again, I think you misunderstand. Genbank has a BLAST server, you've got
>a sequence, translate your sequence and send your query in.
>
Actually Bill is correct. One of the main reasons that we didn't put
up BLAST earlier was the need to get additional disk space for *yet
another format* of GenBank. On GOS now we have GenBank in the Sybase
relational format, we have GenBank indexed for IRX retrieval, we have
the flat file version of GenBank, we have GenBank for BLAST, we have
the IG Suite version of GenBank, and we are now giving some thought to
indexing GenBank for WAIS .... (sigh). This is not to mention the
fact that we also have GenBank available in the FTP directories in
both the flat file and floppy formats. Unfortunately one can not use
links from the general access FTP area to other secured parts of the
machine. The format issue is painfully real but there is also no
doubt that no single format currently available is optimal for all
needs.
Sincerely,
Dave Kristofferson
GenBank Manager
kristoff at genbank.bio.net
