Brief introduction about crystal-structure database and crystallographic data format, CIF: 2. Crystallograhic Information File (CIF)

Crystallographic information including crystal structure is one of the most important knowledge to understand physical and chemical properties of the compounds. Brief information of the “Crystallographic Information File” (CIF) format developed by committee of International Union of Crystallography, is given here. Using this CIF formatted data, we can access more easily to various kinds of databases and also to many programs to calculate properties of the compounds. Moreover, CIF is very effective tool to reduce misprinting on the scientific papers and reports.