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COMCIFS / cif_core

The IUCr CIF core dictionary
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Should data names deprecated in DDL1 be deprecated in DDLm? #477

Closed vaitkus closed 4 months ago

vaitkus commented 4 months ago

The DDL1 version of the CIF_CORE dictionary contains many deprecated data items. There were two main types of deprecation: A) Deprecation due to semantics (_atom_site_refinement_flags, _symmetry_cell_setting). B) Deprecation to discourage the use of certain potentially misleading terms (e.g. _refine_ls_goodness_of_fit_obs was replaced with _refine_ls_goodness_of_fit_gt).

While data items affected by type A deprecation seem to be properly represented in the DDLm version of the dictionary, data names affected by type B deprecation were converted to regular aliases without any notice that their usage should be avoided. Note, that the DDLm reference dictionary does have the _alias.deprecation_date attribute to denote just such alias, but currently it is no widely used. Should it?

jamesrhester commented 4 months ago

Yes, I think we should deprecate type B items as well.