added arxiv query functions

util.py

@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@ import os
 import glob
 import pandas as pd
 import regex
+import arxiv
 
 def category_map():
     """Maps arXiv subject categories to their full english names.
@@ -222,3 +223,61 @@ def find_hyph(text):
         return None
     else:
         return list(set(keywords))
+
+def format_query(author='',title='',cat='',abstract=''):
+    """Returns a formatted arxiv query string to handle simple queries of at most one instance each of these fields. To leave a field unspecified,
+    leave the corresponding argument blank.
+    
+    e.g. format_query(cat='math.AP') will return the string used to pull all articles with the subject tag 'PDEs'.
+
+    Args:
+        author: string to search for in the author field.
+        title: string to search for in the title field.
+        cat: A valid arxiv subject tag. See the full list of these at:
+        https://arxiv.org/category_taxonomy
+        abstract: string to search for in the abstract field.
+
+    Returns:
+        properly formatted query string to return all results simultaneously matching all specified fields.
+    """
+
+    tags = [f'au:{author}', f'ti:{title}', f'cat:{cat}', f'abs:{abstract}'] 
+    query = ' AND '.join([tag for tag in tags if not tag.endswith(':')])
+    return query
+
+
+
+def query_to_df(query,max_results):
+    """Returns the results of an arxiv API query in a pandas dataframe.
+
+    Args:
+        query: string defining an arxiv query formatted according to 
+        https://info.arxiv.org/help/api/user-manual.html#51-details-of-query-construction
+        
+        max_results: positive integer specifying the maximum number of results returned.
+
+    Returns:
+        pandas dataframe with one column for indivial piece of metadata of a returned result.
+        To see a list of these columns and their descriptions, see the documentation for the Results class of the arxiv package here:
+        http://lukasschwab.me/arxiv.py/index.html#Result
+
+        The 'links' column is dropped and the authors column is a list of each author's name as a string.
+        The categories column is also a list of all tags appearing.
+    """
+    search = arxiv.Search(
+            query = query,
+            max_results=max_results,
+            sort_by=arxiv.SortCriterion.LastUpdatedDate
+            )
+    results = search.results()
+
+    drop_cols = ['authors','links','_raw']
+    df = pd.DataFrame()
+
+    for result in results:
+        row_dict = {k : v for (k,v) in vars(result).items() if k not in drop_cols}
+        row_dict['authors'] = [author.name for author in result.authors]
+        row = pd.Series(row_dict)
+        df = pd.concat([df , row.to_frame().transpose()], axis = 0)
+
+    return df.reset_index(drop=True,inplace=False)