Nuclear Data Section (NDS) Department of Nuclear Sciences and Applications International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Wagramer Strasse 5, P.O.Box 100 A-1400 Vienna, Austria Tel:(+43 1) 2600-21714; Fax:(+43 1) 26007 Full EXFOR in C4 format Created 8-May-2007 by Viktor Zerkin, V.Zerkin@iaea.org Last updated: 02-May-2023 _______________________________________________________________________________ Contents: 1. C4-YYYY-MM-DD.zip (size:~133Mb) contains: 1) C4-YYYY-MM-DD.xc4 (size:~1.5Gb): full EXFOR (as of YYYY/MM/DD in the IAEA-NDS) in extended C4 format* 2) C4-YYYY-MM-DD.xc4.tbl datasets summary table of C4-YYYY-MM-DD.xc4 file 3) EXFOR14A.DAT (as of YYYY/MM/DD) 4) C4-YYYY-MM-DD.xc4.readme general information and statistics of C4-YYYY-MM-DD.xc4 2. X4-YYYY-MM-DD.zip (size:~218Mb) contains: X4all: original EXFOR in a directory structure - one ENTRY in one file Total: 320 subdirectories, 24301 files, ~915Mb 3. c4err-YYYY-MM-DD.zip (size:~30Kb) contains: information and data for debugging x4toc5 software and EXFOR14A.DAT, EXFOR24A.DAT, EXFOR25A.DAT (as of YYYY/MM/DD) 4. dev/ contains: several old version of development 5. history.txt 6. readme.txt 7. x4toc4usr.txt: Users' guide for program X4TOC4 (includes description of C4) *Note. Since 2018, superseded EXFOR data are excluded from the distribution. Since 2020, only experimental EXFOR data are included. Since 2023, x4toc5 is used for converting EXFOR files to C4. _______________________________________________________________________________ Questions and Answers. 1.Q: What is C4 format? A: C4 is a computation format presenting experimental data from EXFOR database. Data in C4 format are much easier to process by application programs than EXFOR format*. C4 was designed for comparison of experi- mental data with evaluations and therefore uses ENDF coding (MF-MT-ZA). Program converting data from EXFOR to C4 (X4TOC4) was written by D.E.Cullen (when working in the IAEA) and developed by A.Trkov. "Users' guide for program X4TOC4" says: "The computation format uses a classification system and units which are compatible with ENDF. Data is classified by (1) ZA of projectile, (2) ZA of target, (3) metastable state of target, (4) MF - type of data, (5) MT - reaction, (6) metastable state of residual nucleus. To identify the source of the data the first author and year and the EXFOR accession and sub-accession number are included in the format. In addition, fields are assigned to define the status of the EXFOR data (e.g., S = superceded), whether data is in the laboratory or center-of-mass frame of reference and the physical significance of the last 2 output fields (LVL = level energy, HL = half-life). Finally the format includes 8 fields in which the output data are contained (e.g., incident energy, data, cosine, uncertainties, etc.)" See full description in the file "x4toc4usr.txt". * EXFOR originaly stands for "EXchange FORmat" - format for exchange experimental data between national nuclear data centres. 2.Q: What is extended C4 format? A: C4 with identification information*: a) Identification information is given as comment starting with #. b) Information is sorted by Entry-Subentry-Pointer and organized as follow: #C4REQUEST #ENTRY ...ENTRY Information: reference, title, full list of authors,... #DATASET: SUBENTRY-Number+Pointer ...DATASET Information: EXFOR-Reaction, MF, MT,... #DATA ...DATA: C4 lines as is in pure C4 file #/DATA ... #/DATASET ... #/ENTRY ... #/C4REQUEST Extended C4 presentation was proposed by V.Zerkin (IAEA,2004). Versions of extended C4 are implemented in the IAEA EXFOR-ENDF Web and stand-alone retrieval systems. * This readme.txt file describes extended C4 format designed for WPEC subgroug SG-30 having the aim to present full EXFOR database in C4 format. 3.Q: How to update software reading C4 to be able to use extended C4? A: Add to your code ignoring lines starting with "#"; or use "filter" - utility, which will read extended C4 and write plain C4 4.Q: Why full EXFOR database is presented in one C4 file (not by smaller parts)? A: One C4 file containing all EXFOR data (although it is huge ~1Gb) seems to be preferable, because: a) user decides how to organize data for his/her application - can easy write software to split full C4-file to parts convenient for his applications and store them in appropriate form, e.g.: 1) index file + directory structure sorting data by EXFOR numbers, 2) index file + directory structure sorting data by target/reaction, 3) ENDF-like directory structure: ZAProjectile/ZAMaterial/MF/MT 4) database etc. (full freedom: NDS does not dictate the method of data storage) b) no need to provide software for data access (which can be different for different applications). 5.Q: Is there any alternative way to get EXFOR data in C4 format? A: NDS provides two "standard" ways/methods to get EXFOR data in C4 format: a) via Web EXFOR retrieval system: http://www-nds.iaea.org/exfor/ b) using non-interactive stand-alone Java-utility retrieveing data from EXFOR database (MySQL/MS-Access on CD-ROM or remotely), which can be called through external script by any application (as it is done for Empire and EndVer). IAEA-NDS CD-ROMs: - "EXFOR-CINDA for Applications" for Linux/Windows/Mac (MySQL) - "EndVer/GUI and EXFOR-CINDA for Applications" (Lin/Win/Mac,MySQL) - "EXFOR-CINDA Retrieval system for Windows" (MS-Access) 6.Q: What is the meaning of the fields in the lines #C4REQUEST and #/C4REQUEST ? A: These lines mark begin/end of an extended C4-file: a) #C4REQUEST N1 N2 N3 N1 - date of request (date when this C4-file was created) N2 - time, when request started N3 - date of last update of EXFOR database, from which data were retrieved (source database) b) #/C4REQUEST N1 N2 N3 N4 N5 N1 - number of Entries in this file (start with #ENTRY) N2 - number of Datasets in this file (start with #DATASET) N3 - total number of datasets in the source EXFOR database N5 - total number of data points -End-