Scholar's tools for arXiv

The sxolar package is a collection of tools for working with arXiv data. It includes low-level and high-level interfaces for querying arXiv metadata, summarizing query results into digest formats, and optional control based on a configuration file.

The tools are written in Python and are designed to be used in any python application. A command line interface is also provided for easy access to the tools from a shell. The core tools are designed to be used in place of the Arxiv API <https://arxiv.org/help/api/index>, with a simpler interface and more features, including

• Searching and filtering papers
• Creating personalized search summaries
• Persisting useful searches for automated search digests

Ultimately, the goal of this project is to provide a set of tools that can be used to build a personalized search engine for academic papers, with the ability to search, download, and explore the network of citations between papers.

Installation

To install sXolar, run the command:

pip install sxolar

This will install the sXolar package and all of its dependencies.

Getting Started

The high-level api provides a simple object-oriented interface for constructing and executing queries. Here is an example of how to use the high-level api:

from sxolar import Author

query = Author('John Doe') | Author('Jane Doe')
query.search()

Note that some builtin python operations have been overloaded to provide a more intuitive interface for constructing queries. For example, the | operator is overloaded to represent a logical OR operation between two query objects. For more information on the high-level api, see the API Docs.

Quick Examples

Here are some quick examples of how to use the sXolar package.

Search for papers by a specific author:

from sxolar import Author

query = Author('John Doe')
query.search()

Search for papers by multiple authors (logical OR):

from sxolar import Author

query = Author('John Doe') | Author('Jane Doe')
query.search()

Search for papers by a specific title:

from sxolar import Title

query = Title("Quantum Mechanics")
query.search()

Search for papers with a specific title, but not by a specific author:

from sxolar import Title, Author

query = Title('Quantum Mechanics') - Author('John Doe')
query.search()

Search for papers with a specific title, but not by a specific set of authors:

from sxolar import Title, Author

query = Title('Quantum Mechanics') - (Author('John Doe') | Author('Jane Doe')).wrap()
query.search()

Acknowledgements

Thank you to arXiv for use of its open access interoperability.