File formats

Summary of file formats

Parameter files

mdp
run parameters, input for gmx grompp and gmx convert-tpr
m2p
input for gmx xpm2ps

Structure files

gro
GROMACS format
g96
GROMOS-96 format
pdb
brookhaven Protein DataBank format
Structure+mass(db): tpr, gro, g96, or pdb
Structure and mass input for analysis tools. When gro or pdb is used approximate masses will be read from the mass database.

Topology files

top
system topology (ascii)
itp
include topology (ascii)
rtp
residue topology (ascii)
ndx
index file (ascii)
n2t
atom naming definition (ascii)
atp
atom type library (ascii)
r2b
residue to building block mapping (ascii)
arn
atom renaming database (ascii)
hdb
hydrogen atom database (ascii)
vsd
virtual site database (ascii)
tdb
termini database (ascii)

Run Input files

tpr
system topology, parameters, coordinates and velocities (binary, portable)

Trajectory files

tng
Any kind of data (compressed, portable, any precision)
trr
x, v and f (binary, full precision, portable)
xtc
x only (compressed, portable, any precision)
gro
x and v (ascii, any precision)
g96
x only (ascii, fixed high precision)
pdb
x only (ascii, reduced precision)
Formats for full-precision data:
tng or trr
Generic trajectory formats:
tng, xtc, trr, gro, g96, or pdb

Energy files

ene
energies, temperature, pressure, box size, density and virials (binary)
edr
energies, temperature, pressure, box size, density and virials (binary, portable)
Generic energy formats:
edr or ene

Other files

dat
generic, preferred for input
edi
essential dynamics constraints input for gmx mdrun
eps
Encapsulated Postscript
log
log file
map
colormap input for gmx do_dssp
mtx
binary matrix data
out
generic, preferred for output
tex
LaTeX input
xpm
ascii matrix data, use gmx xpm2ps to convert to eps
xvg
xvgr input

File format details

atp

The atp file contains general information about atom types, like the atom number and the mass in atomic mass units.

arn

The arn file allows the renaming of atoms from their force field names to the names as defined by IUPAC/PDB, to allow easier visualization and identification.

cpt

The cpt file extension stands for portable checkpoint file. The complete state of the simulation is stored in the checkpoint file, including extended thermostat/barostat variables, random number states and NMR time averaged data. With domain decomposition also the some decomposition setup information is stored.

See also gmx mdrun.

dat

Files with the dat file extension contain generic input or output. As it is not possible to categorize all data file formats, GROMACS has a generic file format called dat of which no format is given.

dlg

The dlg file format is used as input for the gmx view trajectory viewer. These files are not meant to be altered by the end user.

Sample

grid 39 18 {

group "Bond Options" 1 1 16 9 {
  radiobuttons { " Thin Bonds"  " Fat Bonds" " Very Fat Bonds" " Spheres" }
        "bonds" "Ok" " F" "help bonds"
}

group "Other Options" 18 1 20 13 {
  checkbox " Show Hydrogens"      ""  "" "FALSE" "help opts"
  checkbox " Draw plus for atoms" ""  "" "TRUE"  "help opts"
  checkbox " Show Box"            ""  "" "TRUE"  "help opts"
  checkbox " Remove PBC"          ""  "" "FALSE" "help opts"
  checkbox " Depth Cueing"        ""  "" "TRUE"  "help opts"
  edittext "Skip frames: "        ""  "" "0"     "help opts"
}

simple 1 15 37 2 {
  defbutton "Ok" "Ok" "Ok" "Ok" "help bonds"
}

}

edi

Files with the edi file extension contain information for gmx mdrun to run Molecular Dynamics with Essential Dynamics constraints. It used to be possible to generate those through the options provided in the WHAT IF program.

edr

The edr file extension stands for portable energy file. The energies are stored using the xdr protocol.

See also gmx energy.

ene

The ene file extension stands for binary energy file. It holds the energies as generated during your gmx mdrun.

The file can be transformed to a portable energy file (portable across hardware platforms), the edr file using the program gmx eneconv.

See also gmx energy.

eps

The eps file format is not a special GROMACS format, but just a variant of the standard PostScript(tm). A sample eps file as generated by the gmx xpm2ps program is included below. It shows the secondary structure of a peptide as a function of time.

hallo

g96

A file with the g96 extension can be a GROMOS-96 initial/final configuration file or a coordinate trajectory file or a combination of both. The file is fixed format, all floats are written as 15.9 (files can get huge). GROMACS supports the following data blocks in the given order:

  • Header block:

    • TITLE (mandatory)
  • Frame blocks:

    • TIMESTEP (optional)
    • POSITION/POSITIONRED (mandatory)
    • VELOCITY/VELOCITYRED (optional)
    • BOX (optional)

See the GROMOS-96 manual for a complete description of the blocks.

Note that all GROMACS programs can read compressed or g-zipped files.

gro

Files with the gro file extension contain a molecular structure in Gromos87 format. gro files can be used as trajectory by simply concatenating files. An attempt will be made to read a time value from the title string in each frame, which should be preceded by ‘t=’, as in the sample below.

A sample piece is included below:

MD of 2 waters, t= 0.0
    6
    1WATER  OW1    1   0.126   1.624   1.679  0.1227 -0.0580  0.0434
    1WATER  HW2    2   0.190   1.661   1.747  0.8085  0.3191 -0.7791
    1WATER  HW3    3   0.177   1.568   1.613 -0.9045 -2.6469  1.3180
    2WATER  OW1    4   1.275   0.053   0.622  0.2519  0.3140 -0.1734
    2WATER  HW2    5   1.337   0.002   0.680 -1.0641 -1.1349  0.0257
    2WATER  HW3    6   1.326   0.120   0.568  1.9427 -0.8216 -0.0244
   1.82060   1.82060   1.82060

Lines contain the following information (top to bottom):

  • title string (free format string, optional time in ps after ‘t=’)
  • number of atoms (free format integer)
  • one line for each atom (fixed format, see below)
  • box vectors (free format, space separated reals), values: v1(x) v2(y) v3(z) v1(y) v1(z) v2(x) v2(z) v3(x) v3(y), the last 6 values may be omitted (they will be set to zero). GROMACS only supports boxes with v1(y)=v1(z)=v2(z)=0.

This format is fixed, ie. all columns are in a fixed position. Optionally (for now only yet with trjconv) you can write gro files with any number of decimal places, the format will then be n+5 positions with n decimal places (n+1 for velocities) in stead of 8 with 3 (with 4 for velocities). Upon reading, the precision will be inferred from the distance between the decimal points (which will be n+5). Columns contain the following information (from left to right):

  • residue number (5 positions, integer)
  • residue name (5 characters)
  • atom name (5 characters)
  • atom number (5 positions, integer)
  • position (in nm, x y z in 3 columns, each 8 positions with 3 decimal places)
  • velocity (in nm/ps (or km/s), x y z in 3 columns, each 8 positions with 4 decimal places)

Note that separate molecules or ions (e.g. water or Cl-) are regarded as residues. If you want to write such a file in your own program without using the GROMACS libraries you can use the following formats:

C format
"%5d%-5s%5s%5d%8.3f%8.3f%8.3f%8.4f%8.4f%8.4f"
Fortran format
(i5,2a5,i5,3f8.3,3f8.4)
Pascal format
This is left as an exercise for the user

Note that this is the format for writing, as in the above example fields may be written without spaces, and therefore can not be read with the same format statement in C.

hdb

The hdb file extension stands for hydrogen database Such a file is needed by gmx pdb2gmx when building hydrogen atoms that were either originally missing, or that were removed with -ignh.

itp

The itp file extension stands for include topology. These files are included in topology files (with the top extension).

log

Logfiles are generated by some GROMACS programs and are usually in human-readable format. Use more logfile.

m2p

The m2p file format contains input options for the gmx xpm2ps program. All of these options are very easy to comprehend when you look at the PosScript(tm) output from gmx xpm2ps.

; Command line options of xpm2ps override the parameters in this file
black&white              = no           ; Obsolete
titlefont                = Times-Roman  ; A PostScript Font
titlefontsize            = 20           ; Font size (pt)
legend                   = yes          ; Show the legend
legendfont               = Times-Roman  ; A PostScript Font
legendlabel              =              ; Used when there is none in the .xpm
legend2label             =              ; Used when merging two xpm's
legendfontsize           = 14           ; Font size (pt)
xbox                     = 2.0          ; x-size of a matrix element
ybox                     = 2.0          ; y-size of a matrix element
matrixspacing            = 20.0         ; Space between 2 matrices
xoffset                  = 0.0          ; Between matrix and bounding box
yoffset                  = 0.0          ; Between matrix and bounding box
x-major                  = 20           ; Major ticks on x axis every .. frames
x-minor                  = 5            ; Id. Minor ticks
x-firstmajor             = 0            ; First frame for major tick
x-majorat0               = no           ; Major tick at first frame
x-majorticklen           = 8.0          ; x-majorticklength
x-minorticklen           = 4.0          ; x-minorticklength
x-label                  =              ; Used when there is none in the .xpm
x-fontsize               = 16           ; Font size (pt)
x-font                   = Times-Roman  ; A PostScript Font
x-tickfontsize           = 10           ; Font size (pt)
x-tickfont               = Helvetica    ; A PostScript Font
y-major                  = 20
y-minor                  = 5
y-firstmajor             = 0
y-majorat0               = no
y-majorticklen           = 8.0
y-minorticklen           = 4.0
y-label                  =
y-fontsize               = 16
y-font                   = Times-Roman
y-tickfontsize           = 10
y-tickfont               = Helvetica

map

This file maps matrix data to RGB values which is used by the gmx do_dssp program.

The format of this file is as follow: first line number of elements in the colormap. Then for each line: The first character is a code for the secondary structure type. Then comes a string for use in the legend of the plot and then the R (red) G (green) and B (blue) values.

In this case the colors are (in order of appearance): white, red, black, cyan, yellow, blue, magenta, orange.

8
~   Coil            1.0       1.0     1.0
E   B-Sheet         1.0       0.0     0.0
B   B-Bridge        0.0       0.0     0.0
S   Bend            0.0       0.8     0.8
T   Turn            1.0       1.0     0.0
H   A-Helix         0.0       0.0     1.0
G   3-Helix         1.0       0.0     1.0
I   5-Helix         1.0       0.6     0.0

mdp

See the user guide for a detailed description of the options.

Below is a sample mdp file. The ordering of the items is not important, but if you enter the same thing twice, the last is used (gmx grompp gives you a note when overriding values). Dashes and underscores on the left hand side are ignored.

The values of the options are values for a 1 nanosecond MD run of a protein in a box of water.

Note: The parameters chosen (e.g., short-range cutoffs) depend on the force field being used.

integrator               = md
dt                       = 0.002
nsteps                   = 500000

nstlog                   = 5000
nstenergy                = 5000
nstxout-compressed       = 5000

continuation             = yes
constraints              = all-bonds
constraint-algorithm     = lincs

cutoff-scheme            = Verlet

coulombtype              = PME
rcoulomb                 = 1.0

vdwtype                  = Cut-off
rvdw                     = 1.0
DispCorr                 = EnerPres

tcoupl                   = V-rescale
tc-grps                  = Protein  SOL
tau-t                    = 0.1      0.1
ref-t                    = 300      300

pcoupl                   = Parrinello-Rahman
tau-p                    = 2.0
compressibility          = 4.5e-5
ref-p                    = 1.0

With this input gmx grompp will produce a commented file with the default name mdout.mdp. That file will contain the above options, as well as all other options not explicitly set, showing their default values.

mtx

Files with the mtx file extension contain a matrix. The file format is identical to the trr format. Currently this file format is only used for hessian matrices, which are produced with gmx mdrun and read by gmx nmeig.

ndx

The GROMACS index file (usually called index.ndx) contains some user definable sets of atoms. The file can be read by most analysis programs, by the graphics program (gmx view) and by the preprocessor (gmx grompp). Most of these programs create default index groups when no index file is supplied, so you only need to make an index file when you need special groups.

First the group name is written between square brackets. The following atom numbers may be spread out over as many lines as you like. The atom numbering starts at 1.

An example file is here:

[ Oxygen ]
1  4  7
[ Hydrogen ]
2  3  5  6
8  9

There are two groups, and total nine atoms. The first group Oxygen has 3 elements. The second group Hydrogen has 6 elements.

An index file generation tool is available: gmx make_ndx.

n2t

This GROMACS file can be used to perform primitive translations between atom names found in structure files and the corresponding atom types. This is mostly useful for using utilities such as gmx x2top, but users should be aware that the knowledge in this file is extremely limited.

An example file (share/top/gromos53a5.ff/atomname2type.n2t) is here:

H       H    0.408  1.008  1  O     0.1
O       OA  -0.674 15.9994 2  C     0.14 H 0.1
C       CH3  0.000 15.035  1  C     0.15
C       CH0  0.266 12.011  4  C     0.15 C 0.15     C 0.15     O 0.14

A short description of the file format follows:

  • Column 1: Elemental symbol of the atom/first character in the atom name.
  • Column 2: The atom type to be assigned.
  • Column 3: The charge to be assigned.
  • Column 4: The mass of the atom.
  • Column 5: The number N of other atoms to which this atom is bonded. The number of fields that follow are related to this number; for each atom, an elemental symbol and the reference distance for its bond length.
  • Columns 6-onward: The elemental symbols and reference bond lengths for N connections (column 5) to the atom being assigned parameters (column 1). The reference bond lengths have a tolerance of +/- 10% from the value specified in this file. Any bond outside this tolerance will not be recognized as being connected to the atom being assigned parameters.

out

Files with the out file extension contain generic output. As it is not possible to categorize all data file formats, GROMACS has a generic file format called out of which no format is given.

pdb

Files with the pdb extension are molecular structure files in the protein databank file format. The protein databank file format describes the positions of atoms in a molecular structure. Coordinates are read from the ATOM and HETATM records, until the file ends or an ENDMDL record is encountered. GROMACS programs can read and write a simulation box in the CRYST1 entry. The pdb format can also be used as a trajectory format: several structures, separated by ENDMDL, can be read from or written to one file.

Example

A pdb file should look like this:

ATOM      1  H1  LYS     1      14.260   6.590  34.480  1.00  0.00
ATOM      2  H2  LYS     1      13.760   5.000  34.340  1.00  0.00
ATOM      3  N   LYS     1      14.090   5.850  33.800  1.00  0.00
ATOM      4  H3  LYS     1      14.920   5.560  33.270  1.00  0.00
...
...

rtp

The rtp file extension stands for residue topology. Such a file is needed by gmx pdb2gmx to make a GROMACS topology for a protein contained in a pdb file. The file contains the default interaction type for the 4 bonded interactions and residue entries, which consist of atoms and optionally bonds, angles dihedrals and impropers. Parameters can be added to bonds, angles, dihedrals and impropers, these parameters override the standard parameters in the itp files. This should only be used in special cases. Instead of parameters a string can be added for each bonded interaction, the string is copied to the top file, this is used for the GROMOS96 forcefield.

gmx pdb2gmx automatically generates all angles, this means that the [angles] field is only useful for overriding itp parameters.

gmx pdb2gmx automatically generates one proper dihedral for every rotatable bond, preferably on heavy atoms. When the [dihedrals] field is used, no other dihedrals will be generated for the bonds corresponding to the specified dihedrals. It is possible to put more than one dihedral on a rotatable bond.

gmx pdb2gmx sets the number exclusions to 3, which means that interactions between atoms connected by at most 3 bonds are excluded. Pair interactions are generated for all pairs of atoms which are separated by 3 bonds (except pairs of hydrogens). When more interactions need to be excluded, or some pair interactions should not be generated, an [exclusions] field can be added, followed by pairs of atom names on separate lines. All non-bonded and pair interactions between these atoms will be excluded.

A sample is included below.

[ bondedtypes ]  ; mandatory
; bonds  angles  dihedrals  impropers
     1       1          1          2  ; mandatory

[ GLY ]  ; mandatory

 [ atoms ]  ; mandatory
; name  type  charge  chargegroup
     N     N  -0.280     0
     H     H   0.280     0
    CA   CH2   0.000     1
     C     C   0.380     2
     O     O  -0.380     2

 [ bonds ]  ; optional
;atom1 atom2      b0      kb
     N     H
     N    CA
    CA     C
     C     O
    -C     N

 [ exclusions ]  ; optional
;atom1 atom2

 [ angles ]  ; optional
;atom1 atom2 atom3    th0    cth

 [ dihedrals ]  ; optional
;atom1 atom2 atom3 atom4   phi0     cp   mult

 [ impropers ]  ; optional
;atom1 atom2 atom3 atom4     q0     cq
     N    -C    CA     H
    -C   -CA     N    -O


[ ZN ]
 [ atoms ]
    ZN    ZN   2.000     0

r2b

The r2b file translates the residue names for residues that have different names in different force fields, or have different names depending on their protonation states.

tdb

tdb files contain the information about amino acid termini that can be placed at the end of a polypeptide chain.

tex

We use LaTeX for document processing. Although the input is not so user friendly, it has some advantages over word processors.

  • LaTeX knows a lot about formatting, probably much more than you.
  • The input is clear, you always know what you are doing
  • It makes anything from letters to a thesis
  • Much more…

tng

Files with the .tng file extension can contain all kinds of data related to the trajectory of a simulation. For example, it might contain coordinates, velocities, forces and/or energies. Various mdp file options control which of these are written by gmx mdrun, whether data is written with compression, and how lossy that compression can be. This file is in portable binary format and can be read with gmx dump.

gmx dump -f traj.tng

or if you’re not such a fast reader:

gmx dump -f traj.tng | less

You can also get a quick look in the contents of the file (number of frames etc.) using:

gmx check -f traj.tng

top

The top file extension stands for topology. It is an ascii file which is read by gmx grompp which processes it and creates a binary topology (tpr file).

A sample file is included below:

;
; Example topology file
;
[ defaults ]
; nbfunc        comb-rule       gen-pairs       fudgeLJ fudgeQQ
  1             1               no              1.0     1.0

; The force field files to be included
#include "rt41c5.itp"

[ moleculetype ]
; name  nrexcl
Urea         3

[ atoms ]
;   nr    type   resnr  residu    atom    cgnr  charge
     1       C       1    UREA      C1       1   0.683
     2       O       1    UREA      O2       1  -0.683
     3      NT       1    UREA      N3       2  -0.622
     4       H       1    UREA      H4       2   0.346
     5       H       1    UREA      H5       2   0.276
     6      NT       1    UREA      N6       3  -0.622
     7       H       1    UREA      H7       3   0.346
     8       H       1    UREA      H8       3   0.276

[ bonds ]
;  ai    aj funct           c0           c1
    3     4     1 1.000000e-01 3.744680e+05
    3     5     1 1.000000e-01 3.744680e+05
    6     7     1 1.000000e-01 3.744680e+05
    6     8     1 1.000000e-01 3.744680e+05
    1     2     1 1.230000e-01 5.020800e+05
    1     3     1 1.330000e-01 3.765600e+05
    1     6     1 1.330000e-01 3.765600e+05

[ pairs ]
;  ai    aj funct           c0           c1
    2     4     1 0.000000e+00 0.000000e+00
    2     5     1 0.000000e+00 0.000000e+00
    2     7     1 0.000000e+00 0.000000e+00
    2     8     1 0.000000e+00 0.000000e+00
    3     7     1 0.000000e+00 0.000000e+00
    3     8     1 0.000000e+00 0.000000e+00
    4     6     1 0.000000e+00 0.000000e+00
    5     6     1 0.000000e+00 0.000000e+00

[ angles ]
;  ai    aj    ak funct           c0           c1
    1     3     4     1 1.200000e+02 2.928800e+02
    1     3     5     1 1.200000e+02 2.928800e+02
    4     3     5     1 1.200000e+02 3.347200e+02
    1     6     7     1 1.200000e+02 2.928800e+02
    1     6     8     1 1.200000e+02 2.928800e+02
    7     6     8     1 1.200000e+02 3.347200e+02
    2     1     3     1 1.215000e+02 5.020800e+02
    2     1     6     1 1.215000e+02 5.020800e+02
    3     1     6     1 1.170000e+02 5.020800e+02

[ dihedrals ]
;  ai    aj    ak    al funct           c0           c1           c2
    2     1     3     4     1 1.800000e+02 3.347200e+01 2.000000e+00
    6     1     3     4     1 1.800000e+02 3.347200e+01 2.000000e+00
    2     1     3     5     1 1.800000e+02 3.347200e+01 2.000000e+00
    6     1     3     5     1 1.800000e+02 3.347200e+01 2.000000e+00
    2     1     6     7     1 1.800000e+02 3.347200e+01 2.000000e+00
    3     1     6     7     1 1.800000e+02 3.347200e+01 2.000000e+00
    2     1     6     8     1 1.800000e+02 3.347200e+01 2.000000e+00
    3     1     6     8     1 1.800000e+02 3.347200e+01 2.000000e+00

[ dihedrals ]
;  ai    aj    ak    al funct           c0           c1
    3     4     5     1     2 0.000000e+00 1.673600e+02
    6     7     8     1     2 0.000000e+00 1.673600e+02
    1     3     6     2     2 0.000000e+00 1.673600e+02

; Include SPC water topology
#include "spc.itp"

[ system ]
Urea in Water

[ molecules ]
Urea    1
SOL     1000

tpr

The tpr file extension stands for portable binary run input file. This file contains the starting structure of your simulation, the molecular topology and all the simulation parameters. Because this file is in binary format it cannot be read with a normal editor. To read a portable binary run input file type:

gmx dump -s topol.tpr

or if you’re not such a fast reader:

gmx dump -s topol.tpr | less

You can also compare two tpr files using:

gmx check -s1 top1 -s2 top2 | less

trr

Files with the trr file extension contain the trajectory of a simulation. In this file all the coordinates, velocities, forces and energies are printed as you told GROMACS in your mdp file. This file is in portable binary format and can be read with gmx dump:

gmx dump -f traj.trr

or if you’re not such a fast reader:

gmx dump -f traj.trr | less

You can also get a quick look in the contents of the file (number of frames etc.) using:

% gmx check -f traj.trr

vsd

The vsd file contains the information on how to place virtual sites on a number of different molecules in a force field.

xdr

GROMACS uses the XDR file format to store things like coordinate files internally.

xpm

The GROMACS xpm file format is compatible with the XPixMap format and is used for storing matrix data. Thus GROMACS xpm files can be viewed directly with programs like XV. Alternatively, they can be imported into GIMP and scaled to 300 DPI, using strong antialiasing for font and graphics. The first matrix data line in an xpm file corresponds to the last matrix row. In addition to the XPixMap format, GROMACS xpm files may contain extra fields. The information in these fields is used when converting an xpm file to EPS with gmx xpm2ps. The optional extra field are:

  • Before the gv_xpm declaration: title, legend, x-label, y-label and type, all followed by a string. The legend field determines the legend title. The type field must be followed by "continuous" or "discrete", this determines which type of legend will be drawn in an EPS file, the default type is continuous.
  • The xpm colormap entries may be followed by a string, which is a label for that color.
  • Between the colormap and the matrix data, the fields x-axis and/or y-axis may be present followed by the tick-marks for that axis.

The example GROMACS xpm file below contains all the extra fields. The C-comment delimiters and the colon in the extra fields are optional.

/* XPM */
/* This matrix is generated by g_rms. */
/* title:   "Backbone RMSD matrix" */
/* legend:  "RMSD (nm)" */
/* x-label: "Time (ps)" */
/* y-label: "Time (ps)" */
/* type:    "Continuous" */
static char * gv_xpm[] = {
"13 13   6 1",
"A  c #FFFFFF " /* "0" */,
"B  c #CCCCCC " /* "0.0399" */,
"C  c #999999 " /* "0.0798" */,
"D  c #666666 " /* "0.12" */,
"E  c #333333 " /* "0.16" */,
"F  c #000000 " /* "0.2" */,
/* x-axis:  0 40 80 120 160 200 240 280 320 360 400 440 480 */
/* y-axis:  0 40 80 120 160 200 240 280 320 360 400 440 480 */
"FEDDDDCCCCCBA",
"FEDDDCCCCBBAB",
"FEDDDCCCCBABC",
"FDDDDCCCCABBC",
"EDDCCCCBACCCC",
"EDCCCCBABCCCC",
"EDCCCBABCCCCC",
"EDCCBABCCCCCD",
"EDCCABCCCDDDD",
"ECCACCCCCDDDD",
"ECACCCCCDDDDD",
"DACCDDDDDDEEE",
"ADEEEEEEEFFFF"

xtc

The xtc format is a portable format for trajectories. It uses the xdr routines for writing and reading data which was created for the Unix NFS system. The trajectories are written using a reduced precision algorithm which works in the following way: the coordinates (in nm) are multiplied by a scale factor, typically 1000, so that you have coordinates in pm. These are rounded to integer values. Then several other tricks are performed, for instance making use of the fact that atoms close in sequence are usually close in space too (e.g. a water molecule). To this end, the xdr library is extended with a special routine to write 3-D float coordinates. The routine was originally written by Frans van Hoesel as part of an Europort project. An updated version of it can be obtained through this link.

All the data is stored using calls to xdr routines.

int magic
A magic number, for the current file version its value is 1995.
int natoms
The number of atoms in the trajectory.
int step
The simulation step.
float time
The simulation time.
float box[3][3]
The computational box which is stored as a set of three basis vectors, to allow for triclinic PBC. For a rectangular box the box edges are stored on the diagonal of the matrix.
3dfcoord x[natoms]
The coordinates themselves stored in reduced precision. Please note that when the number of atoms is smaller than 9 no reduced precision is used.

Using xtc in your “C” programs

To read and write these files the following “C” routines are available:

/* All functions return 1 if successful, 0 otherwise */

extern int open_xtc(XDR *xd,char *filename,char *mode);
/* Open a file for xdr I/O */

extern void close_xtc(XDR *xd);
/* Close the file for xdr I/O */

extern int read_first_xtc(XDR *xd,char *filename,
                          int *natoms,int *step,real *time,
                          matrix box,rvec **x,real *prec);
/* Open xtc file, read xtc file first time, allocate memory for x */

extern int read_next_xtc(XDR *xd,
                         int *natoms,int *step,real *time,
                         matrix box,rvec *x,real *prec);
/* Read subsequent frames */

extern int write_xtc(XDR *xd,
                     int natoms,int step,real time,
                     matrix box,rvec *x,real prec);
/* Write a frame to xtc file */

To use the library function include "gromacs/fileio/xtcio.h" in your file and link with -lgmx.$(CPU).

Using xtc in your FORTRAN programs

To read and write these in a FORTRAN program use the calls to readxtc and writextc as in the following sample program which reads and xtc file and copies it to a new one:

program testxtc

parameter (maxatom=10000,maxx=3*maxatom)
integer xd,xd2,natoms,step,ret,i
real    time,box(9),x(maxx)

call xdrfopen(xd,"test.xtc","r",ret)
print *,'opened test.xtc, ret=',ret
call xdrfopen(xd2,"testout.xtc","w",ret)
print *,'opened testout.xtc, ret=',ret

call readxtc(xd,natoms,step,time,box,x,prec,ret)

if ( ret .eq. 1 ) then
   call writextc(xd2,natoms,step,time,box,x,prec,ret)
else
   print *,'Error reading xtc'
endif

stop
end

To link your program use -L$(GMXHOME)/lib/$(CPU) -lxtcf on your linker command line.

xvg

Almost all output from GROMACS analysis tools is ready as input for Grace, formerly known as Xmgr. We use Grace, because it is very flexible, and it is also free software. It produces PostScript(tm) output, which is very suitable for inclusion in eg. LaTeX documents, but also for other word processors.

A sample Grace session with GROMACS data is shown below:

Sample xvg graphic produced using the |Gromacs| tools