Text Processing

Introduction

• Extract relevant information from text files written in a certain format.

• Analyze / modify the extracted information.

• Store information.

• Allow user to query for information.

• Display information.

Examples for information sources:

• A list of all muscarinic acetylcholine receptor proteins in Swiss-Prot.

  Data items have fixed column positions.

• A list of all muscarinic acetylcholine receptor genes in the Genome Database.

  File has a tab-delimited format.

• Information on the H. sapiens M1 gene for muscarinic acetylcholine receptor, in different formats:
  1. GenBank Entry.

  2. Swiss-Prot Entry. (Key to field names.)

  3. Genome Database Entry.

Using Perl's powerful text processing capabilities, it is possible to automatically "read", retrieve and manipulate information written in all these formats, as well as many others.