<s>
formatdb	B-Application
is	O
a	O
discontinued	O
software	O
tool	O
that	O
was	O
used	O
in	O
molecular	O
bioinformatics	O
to	O
format	O
protein	O
or	O
nucleotide	O
databases	O
for	O
BLAST	B-Application
.	O
</s>
<s>
It	O
has	O
been	O
replaced	O
by	O
makeblastdb	O
and	O
the	O
NCBI	O
"	O
strongly	O
encourage[s]	O
 "	O
users	O
to	O
stop	O
using	O
formatdb	B-Application
.	O
</s>
<s>
formatdb	B-Application
must	O
be	O
used	O
in	O
order	O
to	O
format	O
protein	O
or	O
nucleotide	O
source	O
databases	O
before	O
these	O
databases	O
can	O
be	O
searched	O
by	O
BLAST	B-Application
.	O
</s>
<s>
The	O
source	O
database	O
may	O
be	O
in	O
either	O
FASTA	B-Application
or	O
ASN.1	B-Protocol
format	O
.	O
</s>
<s>
Although	O
the	O
FASTA	B-Application
format	O
is	O
most	O
often	O
used	O
as	O
input	O
to	O
formatdb	B-Application
,	O
the	O
use	O
of	O
ASN.1	B-Protocol
is	O
advantageous	O
for	O
those	O
who	O
are	O
using	O
ASN.1	B-Protocol
as	O
the	O
common	O
source	O
for	O
other	O
formats	O
such	O
as	O
the	O
GenBank	O
report	O
.	O
</s>
<s>
The	O
opposite	O
of	O
operation	O
of	O
formatdb	B-Application
,	O
extracting	O
sequences	O
from	O
a	O
blast	B-Application
formatted	O
database	O
,	O
can	O
be	O
achieved	O
by	O
using	O
the	O
fastacmd	O
program	O
,	O
which	O
comes	O
in	O
the	O
same	O
package	O
.	O
</s>
<s>
In	O
the	O
BLAST+	O
version	O
,	O
formatdb	B-Application
has	O
been	O
succeeded	O
by	O
makeblastdb	O
.	O
</s>
