ELINK(1)

👑 ELINK(1) — the NCBI Entrez Direct manual, but make it make sense 💅

okay bestie, so this is elink from the NCBI Entrez Direct User's Manual and it's literally the girl who knows everybody at the party. she doesn't have the tea herself — she just knows who has the tea and walks you over to them. iconic behaviour honestly 🦋

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✨ NAME ✨

elink — look up related NCBI Entrez records 🔗

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

elink [-help] [-related] [-target dbname] [-name name] [-db name]
[-id ID(s)] [-input filename] [-cmd command] [-cited] [-cites]

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

so what does she actually do? elink follows links between Entrez databases. that's the whole vibe. no cap.

she can either slide into an existing Entrez Direct pipeline and keep the party going, or she can do the whole thing herself if you hand her explicit -db and -id options — or an -input file, that works too. she's flexible like that 💅

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🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

🌈 Destination Database

where are we going, bestie? pick a direction:

• -related — look up neighbors in the same database. staying home, but make it social 🏠
• -target dbname — follow links to another database. we're travelling ✈️
• -name name — follow an explicit link name, like pubmed_protein_refseq, pubmed_pubmed_citedin, or pubmed_pubmed_refs. name-dropping, but useful 📛

🦋 Direct Record Selection

when you already know exactly who you're talking about:

• -db name — Entrez database name for immediate lookups.
• -id ID(s) — unique identifier(s) for immediate lookups.
• -input filename — read identifer(s) from a file instead of from standard input. (yes, the original says "identifer(s)", we're not fixing it, that's canon 💀)

🔥 Advanced Control

the main character controls. buckle up:

• -cmd command — command type. it returns eLinkResult XML. here's the full menu:
  • edirect — instantiate results in ENTREZ_DIRECT message.
  • uid — return results as a sorted UID list, with any duplicates consolidated.
  • history — save results in Entrez history server.
  • neighbor — neighbors or links.
  • score — neighbors with computed similarity scores.
  • acheck — all links available.
  • ncheck — existence of neighbors.
  • lcheck — existence of external links (LinkOuts).
  • llinks — non-library LinkOut providers.
  • llibs — all LinkOut providers.
  • prlinks — primary LinkOut provider.

🧚 PubMed Citation Lookup

citation girlies, this one's for you:

• -cited — references to this paper.
• -cites — publication reference list.

💜 heads up: -cited and -cites use the NIH Open Citation Collection dataset (see PMID 31600197) to follow reference links. that's the receipt, periodt.

🍓 Miscellaneous Arguments

• -help — print usage information. the classic "help me help you" move 🙈

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⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

ecollect(1), efetch(1), efilter(1), einfo(1), epost(1), esearch(1), nquire(1), xfetch(1), xfilter(1), xlink(1), xsearch(1).

the whole entourage. go say hi to all of them 🫶

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and that's the page, bestie! brought to you by NCBI, dated 2025-05-26 — no cap, that's the version and the date, and honestly? slay 💖✨