ECOLLECT(1)

✨ ecollect(1) ✨

okay so bestie, welcome to ecollect — it's the NCBI Entrez Direct user's manual page, and no cap, this little tool is the one that goes and gets you the unique identifiers from NCBI Entrez. 🎀

💖 NAME 💖

ecollect — list NCBI Entrez unique identifiers

Like, that's it. That's the whole job. It lists UIDs. And it does it beautifully. 💅

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

ecollect -db name -web str -key N [-days|-reldate N] [-datetype field]
[-mindate date] [-maxdate date]

ecollect -db name -query str [-days|-reldate N] [-datetype field]
[-mindate date] [-maxdate date]

ecollect -db name -id str...|-rest str|-input file

So there's three whole vibes you can run this in: hit it with a live query via -web + -key, or via -query, or just hand it UIDs you already have. Pick your lane. 🦋

🌈 DESCRIPTION 🌈

ecollect lists unique identifiers from NCBI Entrez, either corresponding to a live query or explicitly supplied. Either way? It hands them to you:

• one per line 📝
• in numerical order 🔢
• with any duplicates consolidated ✨

not me being obsessed with a tool that just cleans up after itself. iconic behavior fr fr. 👑

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

💜 Source Specification 💜

• -db name — the Entrez database name. And heads up bestie: this one is mandatory even when you're explicitly supplying UIDs. Yeah, even then. Don't skip it. 😭
• -web str — the NCBI WebEnv value that corresponds to a previous query. You can optionally still filter it further by date if you want. 🗓️
• -key N — that query's number. (the little companion to -web, they're a package deal 🫶)
• -query str — a query string. Just, like, say what you want. 💬
• -id str ... | -rest str — existing UID(s) to format. They may be internally delimited by whitespace and any punctuation other than . or _. ⚠️ yep, . and _ are NOT delimiters, so don't come for me when they don't split.
• -input file — read UIDs from the specified file. 🍓

🌸 Date Constraint 🌸

• -days | -reldate N — return only results from the past N days. 🕰️
• -datetype field — which date field (in abbreviated form) to consider. 👀
• -mindate date — start of date range. 🌅
• -maxdate date — end of date range. 🌙

👑 SEE ALSO 👑

cit2pmid(1), combine-uid-lists(1), difference-uid-lists(1), efetch(1), efilter(1), elink(1), esearch(1), exclude-uid-lists(1), intersect-uid-lists(1), nquire(1), xfetch(1), xfilter(1), xlink(1), xsearch(1).

the whole friend group is linked, go say hi 💖

and that's the page!! this one's from NCBI, dated 2025-05-26, and it lives in the NCBI Entrez Direct User's Manual. mwah, go collect those UIDs bestie 💅✨🦋