Hi, 

I'm interested in to obtain the **external gene names** and the respective **description** based on gene ids for the fruit fly (D. melanogaster) model. I thought that `biomaRt` R package would be a good solution. Therefore I tried the following: 

    ## Convert Geneid into GeneName
    #
    ensembl <- biomaRt::useMart(biomart = "ensembl", 
                                dataset = "dmelanogaster_gene_ensembl") # select ref db: Drosophila melanogaster genes (BDGP6.28) BDGP6.28
    geneName <- biomaRt::getBM( attributes = c("ensembl_gene_id", "external_gene_name", "description"), 
                                filters = "ensembl_gene_id", 
                                values = data$Geneid, 
                                mart = ensembl )
 
Where the input list is (`data$Geneid %>% head`): 

    [1] "FBgn0031081" "FBgn0052826" "FBgn0031085" "FBgn0062565" "FBgn0031088" "FBgn0041626"

And the result is (`head(geneName)`): 

          ensembl_gene_id external_gene_name description
    1     FBgn0000022                 ac          NA
    2     FBgn0000045             Act79B          NA
    3     FBgn0000061                 al          NA
    4     FBgn0000092             CG2650          NA
    5     FBgn0000100              RpLP0          NA
    6     FBgn0000108               Appl          NA

The **external gene name** is retrieved, but not the **description**. 

Anyone knows if it is possible to get the **description** from *D. melanogaster* ensembl gene ids with the `biomaRt` R package?

If not, can you recommend a R package tool or any other programmatic tool (rather than go to the site and submit a huge list of genes)?

Thanks in advance, 

António
 
Using [Entrezdirect][1]:

    $ more test
    FBgn0000022
    FBgn0000045
    FBgn0000061
    
    $ for i in `cat ./test`; do printf ${i}"\t"; esearch -db gene -query ${i} | esummary | xtract -pattern DocumentSummary -element NomenclatureSymbol,NomenclatureName; done
    FBgn0000022	ac	achaete
    FBgn0000045	Act79B	Actin 79B
    FBgn0000061	al	aristaless


  [1]: http://bit.ly/entrez-direct