CIF (Crystallographic Information File): A Standard for Crystallographic Data Interchange.
The Crystallographic Information File (CIF) uses the self-defining STAR file structure. This requires the creation of a dictionary of data names and definitions. A basic dictionary of terms needed to describe the crystal structures of small molecules was approved in 1991 and is currently used for the submission of papers toActa Crystallographica C. A number of extensions to this dictionary are in preparation. By storing the dictionary itself as a STAR file, the definitions and relationships in the CIF dictionary become computer interpretable. This offers many possibilities for the automatic handling of crystallographic information.
Brockhouse Institute for Materials Research, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
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STAR files; crystallographic information; file structures; relational databases