# Asn2xml

> Use when converting NCBI-style ASN.1 payloads into XML for downstream EDirect or XML-based processing.

- Skill: `vimalinx/asn2xml` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 2 files)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add vimalinx/asn2xml`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/vimalinx/asn2xml/raw
- Safety review: pending (external: skill-scanner PASS, skillspector PASS)
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Coding & Dev Tools
- Author: vimalinx (https://skillmd.com/u/vimalinx)
- Updated: 2026-08-19
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/vimalinx/asn2xml

---


# asn2xml

## Quick Start

- **Command**: `asn2xml < input.asn > output.xml`
- **Local executable**: `/home/vimalinx/miniforge3/envs/bio/bin/asn2xml`
- **Full reference**: See [references/help.md](references/help.md) for complete documentation

## When To Use This Tool

- Convert ASN.1 records into XML so they can be inspected with `xtract` or other XML tooling.
- Bridge older NCBI / EDirect data representations into the XML-centric parts of a pipeline.
- Normalize ASN.1 content before storing or diffing records in text-oriented workflows.

## Common Patterns

```bash
# 1) Convert an ASN.1 record to XML
asn2xml < record.asn > record.xml
```

```bash
# 2) Convert and inspect selected fields immediately
asn2xml < record.asn | xtract -pattern "*" -element "*" | sed -n '1,20p'
```

## Recommended Workflow

1. Start with a representative ASN.1 payload from the upstream source you actually use.
2. Run `asn2xml` through stdin redirection or a pipe.
3. Validate that non-empty XML is produced before batching larger jobs.
4. Pass the XML to `xtract`, `xml2json`, or other downstream converters as needed.

## Guardrails

- This is a thin wrapper around `transmute -a2x`, so the companion `transmute` binary must also be on `PATH`.
- The current build does not expose a real `--help` or `--version` interface.
- Prefer stdin redirection or pipes; positional-argument behavior is not documented by the wrapper itself.
- Unsupported or malformed ASN.1 can result in empty output rather than a friendly format-specific error message.