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CINCH - Crystallography IN C Headers

Note:

I'm fed up of the uninspiring "new library" and here's my first attempt at a funky name. Alternatives welcome!

Aims

The CCP4 software suite is based around a library of routines which cover common tasks, such as file opening, parsing keyworded input, reading and writing of standard data formats, applying symmetry operations, etc. Programs in the suite call these routines which, as well as saving the programmer some effort, ensure that the varied programs in the suite have a similar look-and-feel.

Since 2002, there has been a major effort to re-write much of the CCP4 library into C/C++. The aims are:

• To implement a better representation of the underlying data model. For example, Eugene Krissinel's MMDB library acts on a data structure which represents the various levels of structure of a protein model. The new MTZ library encapsulates the crystal/dataset hierarchy that is increasingly being used by programs.
• To maintain support for existing programs. In particular, the existing Fortran APIs will be maintained, although they will now often be only wrappers to functions in the new library. It is hoped that many existing programs will be migrated to using the new library directly.
• To provide support for scripting. It is possible to generate APIs for Python, Tcl and Perl automatically from the core C code. Thus, much of the standard CCP4 functionality wil be available to scripts used e.g. in ccp4i or the molecular graphics project.

This incremental approach, maintaining the existing suite while improving the underlying code, puts constraints on what is possible, but is considered more appropriate for a collaborative project like CCP4.

This documentation

This documentation is generated automatically by Doxygen from comment sections in the code. It is therefore detailed and extensive. The library divides roughly into the following sections:

CMTZ library

See the CMTZ library page for C/C++ programmers, and the Fortran API to CMTZ page for Fortran programmers.

CMAP library

See the CMAP library page for C/C++ programmers, and the Fortran API to CMAP page for Fortran programmers.

MMDB library

See Eugene's documentation.

CSYM library

See the CSYM library page for C/C++ programmers, and the Fortran API to CSYM page for Fortran programmers.

CCP4 utility library

See the CCP4 Library Utilities page for C/C++ programmers.

Low level disk i/o

See the Fortran API for low level input/output. page for Fortran programmers.