Subject: Introducing CXF - Chemical eXchange Format

From: [email-masked] (Tom Steckert (Ext. 2639))
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 94 10:48:49 EST

CAS INTRODUCES CXF

To encourage consistency in the development of chemical substance software and
use of substance data, CAS (Chemical Abstracts Service) has introduced a
standard data exchange format called CXF (Chemical eXchange Format).

CXF, available free of charge, provides representation of chemical substances
and queries, including atoms, fragments, molecules, and reactions.  Also
available are various substance types, including organics, inorganics,
polymers, salts, hydrates, multi-component mixtures and biosequences.

A single data exchange format is intended to facilitate information exchange
among various systems and organizations.  Therefore CXF is expressed in
Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.1), an International Organization for
Standardization (ISO) open systems interconnection standard compatible with
numerous software programs.

Interest in chemical information interchange processing and standards has a
long history at CAS, which is committed to maintaining open access to the CXF
format.  CAS eventually plans to make available free of charge on the Internet
routines to aid conversion between CXF and other selected formats, and
software to validate the content of files containing CXF data.

For more information, interested users should contact Thomas Steckert or
Joseph Mockus at (614) 447-3600.  Internet addresses are: [email-masked]
and [email-masked].  Questions and comments also are welcome.  The
specification is available via anonymous ftp from info.cas.org, directory
pub/cxf.

=============================================================================
Tom Steckert                     [email-masked]
Chemical Abstracts Service       (614) 447-3600
P.O. Box 3012
Columbus, OH 43210