Assembly XML now available from ENA
As the first step to improvements into genome assembly data access, XML files describing each assembly version are now available from the ENA browser.
Presentation of genome assemblies (GCA_ accessions) within the ENA browser are undergoing improvements in 2016 to increase the data availability to all users. The first step of this process is now complete with the introduction of an XML format for all assembly versions. The schema for the assembly XML is available here and documentation describing the XML can be found here. With the introduction of the new assembly XML, the list of chromosomes, WGS set, statistics and other assembly information is available to the programmatic user for the first time.
Each assembly version has its own XML and can be retrieved using the version specific URL, e.g:
http://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/data/view/GCA_000001405.18&display=XML
If no version is specified, the latest version of the assembly will be retrieved, e.g.:
http://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/data/view/GCA_000001405&display=XML
Optionally, the download parameters can also be used, e.g.:
http://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/data/view/GCA_000001405&display=XML&download=XML
In conjunction with the new XML, we have also made some changes to the rendering of the genome assembly pages. Each version will now always display the information relevant to the assembly version of interest and alternative versions of each assembly can be perused via the "Assembly Versions" tab.
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