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Example Newsletter July2018
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This newsletter provides a short, monthly update on various goings-on in the CIF world.
JMol is a popular free software program for displaying structural information. When the magnetic CIF dictionary was approved in December 2016, JMol was immediately ready to input the mCIF files and display magnetic structures [figure]. Author Bob Hanson says "mCIF files are usually written in CIF2 syntax, which allows vectors and matrices to be expressed compactly but is relatively new. Jmol didn't support this syntax, but it only took a day or so to update JMol and my users really like the diagrams." Bob gave a more in-depth account of his CIF2 programming experience in his IUCr2017 talk. [link]
The various subdirectories at https://github/COMCIFS are used to discuss issues with existing CIF dictionaries, to work on CIF-related programs, and to develop new dictionaries. Notable activity this month:
- dREL code for calculating Cartesian matrices incorrectly assumed a particular alignment with crystal axes
[None so far, will leave out if there is nothing]
(Send all comments to xxx@xxx.xxx)
Send your anonymous questions here and we will attempt to answer them...
Q: What is with the dots in data names?
A: Together with adoption of the DDLm dictionary language, data names are now expected to be written in <category>.<object> form. This ensures that the most important information about a data name (its category) is immediately visible, and that items from the same category appear together in lists. Unfortunately it means that non-mmCIF programmers now need to update their CIF input routines to accept both the legacy (no dots) and modern forms of a data name. mmCIF programmers don't have to do this because
they have always had dots.
Does your organisation archive CIFs? Do you have stories of puzzling or mind-bogglingly incorrect usage? Or perhaps a solution to a small or large curation problem that you can share with others? Send them to the editor and we will present them here!
Reader XYZ from the ICSD noticed that the standard software was tripping up when presented with ....
- Least-used dataname appearing in at least one file:
- Earliest dataset:
- Most often incorrect value: etc.
Why is the following CIF snippet syntactically incorrect? Answer in next month's newsletter!
data_puzzle
_local_parameters_varied 35
_global_parameters_varied 10