Getting Started¶
This page gives a introduction on how to get started with ChemSpiPy.
Before We Start¶
- Make sure you have installed ChemSpiPy.
- Obtain an API key from the ChemSpider web site.
First Steps¶
Start by importing ChemSpider:
>>> from chemspipy import ChemSpider
Then connect to ChemSpider by creating a ChemSpider
instance using your API key:
>>> cs = ChemSpider('<YOUR-API-KEY>')
All your interaction with the ChemSpider database should now happen through this ChemSpider object, cs
.
Retrieve a Compound¶
Retrieving information about a specific Compound in the ChemSpider database is simple.
Let’s get the Compound with ChemSpider ID 2157:
>>> c = cs.get_compound(2157)
Now we have a Compound
object called c
. We can get various identifiers and calculated
properties from this object:
>>> print(c.molecular_formula)
C_{9}H_{8}O_{4}
>>> print(c.molecular_weight)
180.1574
>>> print(c.smiles)
CC(=O)Oc1ccccc1C(=O)O
>>> print(c.common_name)
Aspirin
Search for a Name¶
What if you don’t know the ChemSpider ID of the Compound you want? Instead use the search
method:
>>> for result in cs.search('Glucose'):
... print(result)
Compound(5589)
Compound(58238)
Compound(71358)
Compound(96749)
Compound(2006622)
Compound(5341883)
Compound(5360239)
Compound(9129332)
Compound(9281077)
Compound(9312824)
Compound(9484839)
Compound(9655623)
The search
method accepts any identifer that ChemSpider can interpret, including names, registry numbers, SMILES
and InChI.
That’s a quick taster of the basic ChemSpiPy functionality. Read on for more some more advanced usage examples.