Globally-defined categories?

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Hi all,

I think that there are a few categories which it may make sense to define
in a global_ block at the top of the dictionary? I am thinking of those
categories which are linked indirectly to the ITEM category, namely
ITEM_UNITS_LIST, ITEM_UNITS_CONVERSION, ITEM_TYPE_LIST,
ITEM_STRUCTURE_LIST and METHOD_LIST. 

Paula will probably despair of me at this point :-), because she moved 
some of these to the end of the dictionary at version 0.7.11... There is 
a reason for suggesting this though:

Say someone wants to add items to the dictionary for private use
(which would be well within the CIF spirit), but still make use of the
contents of the above categories in the new definitions. They would have 
to do it by adding the new save frame definitions into the main data block
(data_cifdic.m95). Or, alternatively, they would have to add a new data
block which contained repetitions of the definitions of ITEM_UNITS_LIST,
et al. Both of these possibilities would cause maintainence problems. 

If the above categories had global scope, private data items which use
their contents could be added by appending another data block at the end
of the existing dictionary. If any existing category rows needed
redefining for the new items, that could still be done within the new data
block. 

If this issue is one which has been discussed ad nauseam already - my 
apologies for raising it again!

Regards,
Peter.

========================================================================
Peter Keller.            \ 
Dept. of Biology and      \ "Not even the greatest nonsense is beyond
    Biochemistry,          \  the reach of human invention."
University of Bath,         \ 
Bath, BA2 7AY, UK.           \          --- Ryszard Kapuscinski
------------------------------\-----------------------------------------
Tel. (+44/0)1225 826826 x 4302 | Email: P.A.Keller@bath.ac.uk (Internet)
Fax. (+44/0)1225 826449        |   P.A.Keller%bath.ac.uk@UKACRL (BITNET)
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