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Updated: Jul 11, 2026

Curation of Computational Chemical Libraries Demonstrated with Alpha-Amino Acids
Published on: April 13, 2022
cclib: a library for package-independent computational chemistry algorithms
Noel M O'Boyle1, Adam L Tenderholt, Karol M Langner
1Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre, 12 Union Road, Cambridge CB2 1EZ, United Kingdom. noel.oboyle2@mail.dcu.ie
Abstract:
There are now a wide variety of packages for electronic structure calculations, each of which differs in the algorithms implemented and the output format. Many computational chemistry algorithms are only available to users of a particular package despite being generally applicable to the results of calculations by any package. Here we present cclib, a platform for the development of package-independent computational chemistry algorithms. Files from several versions of multiple electronic structure packages are automatically detected, parsed, and the extracted information converted to a standard internal representation. A number of population analysis algorithms have been implemented as a proof of principle. In addition, cclib is currently used as an input filter for two GUI applications that analyze output files: PyMOlyze and GaussSum.
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