Text or DBF Form for Parameters

HyperChem provides two forms of parameter sets — an ASCII text form and the database form consistent with dBASEIV and a large number of other database packages. Since the principal difficulty with using molecular mechanics is having or obtaining appropriate parameters, you may want to explore parameter sets as a database in the. dbf form. 

The text form for parameters uses white space or commas to separate the fields (columns) of the parameter files. They can be read by ordinary text editors, word processors, etc. In the text form, parameters are easy to modify but not easy to compare, study, etc. Many database programs are capable of reading columns of text as a database, however. While spreadsheets are not, per se, databases, they can be useful for examining parameter sets. Microsoft Excel, for example, can read the text form of a parameter file and put the data in a form easily manipulated as a matrix or a database. The text form of parameters are stored, by default only, in. txt files. 

The dBASEIV (or dBASEIII) form of the parameter sets come in. dbffil s analogous to the. txt files. These dbf files are binary files, so you can t read them directly. They are not required for the product and are provided only as an option. In most situations where there is no extensive use of database operations on parameter sets, the text form is probably more convenient to use. Many spreadsheet programs, including Microsoft Excel, are also capable of reading dbf fil s. 

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