Hi,

I want to access an archived version of biomart and select the human dataset.

    mart=useMart("ensembl_mart_92",host="http://apr2018.archive.ensembl.org")
works but if I do:

    mart=useMart("ensembl_mart_92",host="http://apr2018.archive.ensembl.org", dataset = "hsapiens_gene_ensembl")
it gives error:

    Error in checkDataset(dataset = dataset, mart = mart) : 
      The given dataset:  hsapiens_gene_ensembl , is not valid.  Correct dataset names can be obtained with the listDatasets() function.

If I look into listDatasets() as suggested I get:

    mart=useMart("ensembl_mart_92",host="http://apr2018.archive.ensembl.org")
    listDatasets(mart)
    [1] dataset     description version    
    <0 rows> (or 0-length row.names)

Also tried other suggestions online that didn't work:

    listMarts(archive = TRUE)

    Error in listMarts(archive = TRUE) : 
    The archive = TRUE argument is now defunct.
    Use listEnsemblArchives() to find the URL to directly query an Ensembl archive.


    listEnsemblArchives()
                 name     date                                url version current_release
    1  Ensembl GRCh37 Feb 2014          http://grch37.ensembl.org  GRCh37                
    2      Ensembl 94 Oct 2018 http://oct2018.archive.ensembl.org      94               *
    3      Ensembl 93 Jul 2018 http://jul2018.archive.ensembl.org      93                
    4      Ensembl 92 Apr 2018 http://apr2018.archive.ensembl.org      92                
    5      Ensembl 91 Dec 2017 http://dec2017.archive.ensembl.org      91                
    6      Ensembl 90 Aug 2017 http://aug2017.archive.ensembl.org      90                
    7      Ensembl 89 May 2017 http://may2017.archive.ensembl.org      89                
    8      Ensembl 88 Mar 2017 http://mar2017.archive.ensembl.org      88                
    9      Ensembl 87 Dec 2016 http://dec2016.archive.ensembl.org      87                
    10     Ensembl 86 Oct 2016 http://oct2016.archive.ensembl.org      86                
    11     Ensembl 85 Jul 2016 http://jul2016.archive.ensembl.org      85                
    12     Ensembl 84 Mar 2016 http://mar2016.archive.ensembl.org      84                
    13     Ensembl 83 Dec 2015 http://dec2015.archive.ensembl.org      83                
    14     Ensembl 82 Sep 2015 http://sep2015.archive.ensembl.org      82                
    15     Ensembl 81 Jul 2015 http://jul2015.archive.ensembl.org      81                
    16     Ensembl 80 May 2015 http://may2015.archive.ensembl.org      80                
    17     Ensembl 79 Mar 2015 http://mar2015.archive.ensembl.org      79                
    18     Ensembl 78 Dec 2014 http://dec2014.archive.ensembl.org      78                
    19     Ensembl 77 Oct 2014 http://oct2014.archive.ensembl.org      77                
    20     Ensembl 76 Aug 2014 http://aug2014.archive.ensembl.org      76                
    21     Ensembl 75 Feb 2014 http://feb2014.archive.ensembl.org      75                
    22     Ensembl 74 Dec 2013 http://dec2013.archive.ensembl.org      74                
    23     Ensembl 67 May 2012 http://may2012.archive.ensembl.org      67                
    24     Ensembl 54 May 2009 http://may2009.archive.ensembl.org      54   
    
    mart=useMart("ensembl_mart_92", dataset="hsapiens_gene_ensembl", archive=T)

    rror in listMarts(host = host, path = path, port = port, includeHosts = TRUE,  : 
    The archive = TRUE argument is now defunct.


    mart=useMart("ensembl_mart_92", dataset="hsapiens_gene_ensembl")

    Error in useMart("ensembl_mart_92", dataset = "hsapiens_gene_ensembl") : 
    Incorrect BioMart name, use the listMarts function to see which BioMart databases are available

    listMarts()
                   biomart               version
    1 ENSEMBL_MART_ENSEMBL      Ensembl Genes 94
    2   ENSEMBL_MART_MOUSE      Mouse strains 94
    3     ENSEMBL_MART_SNP  Ensembl Variation 94
    4 ENSEMBL_MART_FUNCGEN Ensembl Regulation 94

I'm walking in circles here...Suggestions??


Emily's answer is correct, but you can also use the following which may be easier to remember than specifying the archive URL directly:

    mart <- useEnsembl(biomart = "ensembl", 
                       dataset = "hsapiens_gene_ensembl", 
                       version = "92")