Access

REST API

This API works with simple, human-readable URLs ('REST' = Representational State Transfer'). These can be used to resolve and to map identifiers in STRING, and to directly fetch networks and other data items in a number of formats. For more details, please refer to the API documentation which you can find in the developer section of help pages.

Stable URLs / Permalinks

These URLs are somewhat similar to the REST API; however, they serve to describe an entire STRING page together with all its navigation elements and the data that it is showing. The stable URL corresponding to a given STRING page can be discovered towards the bottom of each page, under the 'Permalink' icon (only available on pages showing actual data).

Cytoscape Backend API

Apart from the current website, STRING can also be accessed and used from within the Cytoscape application. To make this work, a separate API serves the data to the corresponding 'App' (plugin) in Cytoscape. At present, this API is not yet documented, and we do not recommend it to be used for anything else than the Cytoscape App.

API limits

By using the Application Program Interfaces (APIs), it is possible to access STRING data without using a web browser. Please bear in mind that this mechanism should only be used for limited or occasional database access, in order to avoid overloading the server. If you need larger amounts of data (such as for example all interactions in Homo sapiens), please use the Download page instead - which is also more efficient.

Search Engines

We encourage search engines to index STRING data and we provide mechanisms for this. Please note that the URLs for use by search engines will look different from the URLs that normal users see, because the latter expire after three days. Please check our configuration files robots.txt and sitemap_index.xml, and please adhere to the settings specified there.

Screen Scraping

Please do not scrape the HTML page content. This is likely to fail anyhow, as the content is generated dynamically and all interdependencies will expire after a few days. Instead, please use the APIs, Downloads, or the Permalink mechanism that is available at the bottom of most pages.

All data and download files in STRING are freely available under a 'Creative Commons BY 4.0' license.
When using the data, please provide appropriate credit — and inform users of any changes or additions that you might have made to the data.
 

The access counts below exclude requests from robots or search engines such as Google.
(numbers in brackets: excluding 'link-through'-access from partner websites as well.)