Library API

• A library of tools can be used to build larger applications
• As the library is reused the library tools are optimized and debugged and become better with reuse.
• Automated testing of tools improves their quality and helps prevent fixing a tool for one project and braking it for an older project. Unit testing sites
• http://www.junit.org/
• http://pyunit.sourceforge.net/
• Example: (Python Code http://www.python.org/

  file name: biolib/sequtils.py
  
      def gcContent(seq, xmlOutput=false):
          """seq overloaded for a sequence string or a file handle
          xmlOutput false return int, true return XML   	
          -> the GC content as an int or XML"""
          ...
          return gc

• Open Source Bioinformatics Libraries
• BioPerl
• BioPython
• BioJava