Revision as of 06:31, 11 January 2006

Accessing Open Babel with Python

There are two ways to access the Open Babel library using Python. The first uses the openbabel module which is a direct wrapper of the Open Babel C++ library, created using the SWIG package. The second way is using the pyopenbabel module, a Pythonic wrapper around the openbabel module.

The openbabel module

The openbabel module provides direct access to the C++ Open Babel library from Python. This wrapper is generated using the SWIG package and provides access to almost all of the Open Babel interfaces via Python, including the base classes OBMol, OBAtom, OBBond, and OBResidue, as well as the conversion framework OBConversion. As such, essentially any call in the C++ API is available to Python scripts with very little difference in syntax.

This guide is designed to give examples of common Python syntax for the openbabel module and pointers to the appropriate sections of the API documentation.

The example script below creates atoms and bonds one-by-one using the OBMol, OBAtom, and OBBond classes.

 import openbabel

 mol = openbabel.OBMol()
 print 'Should print 0 (atoms)'
 print mol.NumAtoms()

 a = mol.NewAtom()
 a.SetAtomicNum(6)   # carbon atom
 a.SetVector(0.0, 1.0, 2.0) # coordinates

 b = mol.NewAtom()
 mol.AddBond(1, 2, 1)   # atoms indexed from 1
 print 'Should print 2 (atoms)'
 print mol.NumAtoms()
 print 'Should print 1 (bond)'
 print mol.NumBonds()

 mol.Clear();

More commonly, Open Babel can be used to read in molecules using the OBConversion framework. The following script reads in molecular information (a SMI file) from a string, adds hydrogens, and writes out an MDL file as a string.

 import openbabel

 obConversion = openbabel.OBConversion()
 obConversion.SetInAndOutFormats("smi", "mdl")
 
 mol = openbabel.OBMol()
 obConversion.ReadString(mol, "C1=CC=CS1")

 print 'Should print 5 (atoms)'
 print mol.NumAtoms()

 mol.AddHydrogens()
 print 'Should print 9 (atoms) after adding hydrogens'
 print mol.NumAtoms()

 outMDL = obConversion.WriteString(mol)

The following script writes out a file using a filename, rather than reading and writing to a Python string.

 import openbabel

 obConversion = openbabel.OBConversion()
 obConversion.SetInAndOutFormats("pdb", "mol2")

 obConversion.ReadFile(mol, "1ABC.pdb.gz")   # Open Babel will uncompress automatically

 mol.AddHydrogens()

 print mol.NumAtoms()
 print mol.NumBonds()
 print mol.NumResidues()

 obConversion.WriteFile(mol, '1abc.mol2')

That's it! There's more information on particular calls in the library API. Feel free to address questions to the openbabel-scripting mailing list.

Note on Compiling the SWIG wrapper

If you need to recompile the SWIG wrapper for the library, make sure you have the latest version of SWIG installed and run 'configure' as follows:

 ./configure --enable-maintainer-mode

Running 'make' as usual should recreate the SWIG wrappers.