SOAP Search of CryoNet Messages

While the HTML-based CryoNet search is convenient for humans to read, a SOAP-based mechanism is better for programmatic access to CryoNet Search. SOAP is intended to be language and platform neutral, although interoperability between different implementations still can be difficult. The SOAP Search for CryoNet supports both Perl SOAP::Lite and Microsoft .NET clients:

Search parameters are similar to those for the Advanced CryoNet search:

  • searchStr: word(s) to search (CryoNet search does a logical "AND" operation on all search terms.)
  • sortOrder: "new" - newest match first, "old" - oldest match first, "rank" - best match first
  • startDisp: start the display at this match. For example, if startDisp is "10", skip the first nine matches and start displaying at the tenth match.
  • numDisp: number of matches to display
  • minNmbr: the smallest CryoNet message number to search
  • maxNmbr: the largest CryoNet message number to search

Note that the search term names use camel-case (first word begins with a lower-case letter and remaining words begin with an upper-case letter).

The output is in two parts (two lists in Perl or two tables in C#):

  1. SearchMetaData (one row)
    • startDisp: the SearchResult data starts at the startDisp match (This is the same as the startDisp input parameter, provided at least one match was found.)
    • numDisp: number of matches displayed (This is the same as the numDisp input parameter, provided enough matches were found.)
    • matchNmbr: number of matches found for the search terms.
    • href: url fragment to be used to retrieve an entire CryoNet message. Just add the message number.
    • searchStr: the searchStr given as an input parameter
    • searchTime: the time (in seconds) to perform the search
    • dbDate: the date the CryoNet search database was last updated
    • warnMsg: any warnings generated by the search

  2. SearchResults (many rows)
    • msgNmbr: CryoNet message number. This usually is an integer, but occasionally has a decimal point.
    • msgDate: date for the CryoNet message
    • msgSize: size (in bytes) of the CryoNet message
    • msgSubject: subject line for the CryoNet message
    • msgSynopsis: extract from the CryoNet message, including each of the search terms. Note: This string may include newline characters.

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