Open Drug Database for Switzerland. See the live version at http://ch.oddb.org
- SDIF Interactions: Drug interaction checking uses the SDIF (Swiss Drug Interactions Finder) SQLite database (
data/sqlite/interactions.db). Four sources: EPha.ch curated ATC-to-ATC interactions, substance-level matches, ATC class-level keyword matching in Swissmedic FachInfo text, and CYP enzyme-mediated interactions. Each interaction shows its source (EPha.ch or Swissmedic FI) with type badge (Wirkstoff, ATC-Klasse, CYP). Route indicators (topisch, i.v., s.c., etc.) and approved combination therapy hints are displayed next to drug names. FI results display a "Gegenrichtung hat höhere Einstufung" hint when their severity is below the pair maximum across all interaction types. EPha results show the hint only for asymmetric EPha ratings between directions. - Twitter share and mail/notify icons have been removed from drug search result lists.
- Some email-Addresses are still hardcoded. That needs to be fixed and placed into etc/oddb.yml
- If you install oddb.org via gem please also see these instructions.
git clone https://github.com/rbenv/ruby-build.git "$(rbenv root)"/plugins/ruby-buildrbenv install 3.4.5- Linux:
sudo apt-get install apache2 daemontools daemontools-run pkg-config libmagickwand-dev libpq-dev libmagickcore-dev graphicsmagick uuid-dev - macOS:
brew install libpq graphicsmagick ossp-uuid(usebundle config build.pg --with-pg-config=$(brew --prefix libpq)/bin/pg_configfor the pg gem) bzcat 22:00-postgresql_database-ch_oddb-backup.bz2 | su -c psql -l postgres -p 5433 ch_odd- see Guide.txt
Reparse compositions of 5 digit Swissmedic Numbers (issue #139)
sudo -u apache bundle exec ruby jobs/import_swissmedic_only update_compositions 67685 60134
sudo -u apache bundle exec ruby jobs/import_swissmedic_only update_compositions
sudo -u apache bundle exec ruby jobs/import_swissmedic_only check
bundle exec ruby jobs/update_textinfo_swissmedicinfo --skip --target=both 62822 --reparse
Note: The fiparse daemon (DRb on port 10002) runs as a separate process managed by daemontools (/etc/service/fiparse). After making code changes to ext/fiparse/src/, restart the daemon with sudo svc -h /etc/service/fiparse for changes to take effect.
Tables from swissmedicinfo are parsed by detect_table? in ext/fiparse/src/textinfo_html_parser.rb. Tables with percentage-width styles are rendered as preformatted text; others are rendered as HTML tables with proper colspan/rowspan support. The view (src/view/chapter.rb) only emits colspan/rowspan attributes when > 1 to avoid invalid colspan="0" in the output.
The app uses Swiyu wallet-based authentication (OID4VP). After exceeding the 5-search query limit, users are prompted to log in. The login flow passes a return_url parameter so users are redirected back to their last search result after authentication.
The BSV SL (Spezialitätenliste) data is imported from FHIR NDJSON exports via jobs/import_bsv_fhir. The FHIR data follows the ch-epl Implementation Guide. As of the Feb 2026 IG update, productPrice and costShare are nested inside the reimbursementSL extension on RegulatedAuthorization resources. As of April 2026, the import downloads three per-language NDJSON files directly (foph-sl-export-latest-{de,fr,it}.ndjson) so French and Italian product names and limitation texts are populated alongside the German source.
Refdata migrated their platform on 2026-04-01. The Partner SOAP service (used for company and doctor imports) requires an API key. Set refdata_api_key in etc/oddb.yml (or the REFDATA_API_KEY env var). Register at developer.refdata.ch to obtain a key.
jobs/update_drugshortage imports current Swiss drug shortages from drugshortage.ch. In May 2026 the upstream site migrated from an ASP.NET HTML page to a WordPress + JSON API; the plugin fetches https://www.drugshortage.ch/api_engpaesse.php (the official "show all current shortages" endpoint, ~713 active records) and parses gtin, mutation, status, lieferdatum, id per record. shortage_link is built from the stable upstream id as https://www.drugshortage.ch/index.php/detail-lieferengpass/?ID=<id>. Cached fixture lives at data/json/drugshortage-latest.json.
If the app crashes with PQsocket() can't get socket descriptor, the ODBA connection pool holds dead database connections. A monkey-patch in src/util/odba_connection_patch.rb automatically detects stale connections and reconnects with up to 3 retries. This handles PostgreSQL restarts, idle timeouts, and other connection drops transparently.
If searches fail with NoMethodError: undefined method 'fetch_ids', an ODBA index is corrupted. The app will show an error page with the index name. Rebuild it with:
bundle exec ruby jobs/rebuild_indices <index_name>
For example: bundle exec ruby jobs/rebuild_indices sequence_index
-
to run the Tests you need to do
- bundle install
- bundle exec ruby test/suite.rb
- bundle exec rspec spec/parslet_spec.rb # for parsing the compositions
- look at the index.html in the coverage directory
-
There are some Selenium/Watir based GUI integration tests. For details on how to use them have a look at tests_watir.textile. By default they are run using the gem headless (this can be overrriden by setting the environment variable ODDB_NO_HEADLESS)
-
There is test/wrk_performance.lua allows a stress test with a typical load. See test/wrk_performance.lua for details on howto run it
- To build your local documentation do:
- rdoc1.9 --op documentation
- sudo gem install oddb.org
- Zeno R.R. Davatz 2002-present
- Niklaus Giger 2012-present
- Masaomi Hatakeyama 2009-2011
- Yasuhiro Asaka 2008-2009
- Hannes Wyss 2002-2008
- Herve Robin. Thank you Herve!
- GPLv3.0
- doc/resources/javascript/qrcode.js — Licensed under the MIT license
The word "QR Code" is registered trademark of DENSO WAVE INCORPORATED
For Issues please open one on Github.