CIF VALIDATION

Validation and Checking of CIF's

The validation and checking of CIF's is carried out in two Stages, and should ALWAYS be undertaken before any CIF is submitted to a journal for publication. This avoids wasting reviewers time correcting the file (and possibly also putting him/her in a bad mood!!).
  1. Checking that the file conforms to the CIF syntax.
  2. Checking that the values of the data items are appropriate

Stage 1 is relatively straight-forward, and is carried out by the option CIF SYNTAX. It is essential that the CIF conforms to the syntactic rules before proceeding to Stage 2.

Stage 2 is more problematical, and is still undergoing fine-tuning. There are two options in WinGX for data-validation under the menu item CIF VALIDATE, i.e. IUCr which checks whether the CIF conforms to the DVN standards required for publication in Acta Cryst C, and PLATON which performs a number of other checks.

It is strongly recommended that BOTH Stage 2 checks are carried out, since they are complementary. Each program indicates potential problems, and their level of severity.