`cif-validate` man page suggests multi-dictionary support but the implementation seems to only accepts a single dictionary

[cabb99]

The man page for cif-validate says:

“you can specify multiple dictionaries by concatenating their names separated by a semicolon”

cif-tools/doc/cif-validate.1

Lines 19 to 23 in 958ae21

	\fB--dict\fR=<file>
	The mmCIF dictionary file to use. The default is \fImmcif_pdbx.dic\fR.
	.sp
	Note that you can specify multiple dictionaries by concatenating their names
	separated by a semicolon, like this: \fI--dict='mmcif_pdbx.dic;dssp-extension.dic'\fR

However, the current implementation of cif-validate seems to only accept a single dictionary string:

cif-tools/src/cif-validate.cpp

Lines 114 to 120 in 958ae21

	if (config.count("dict"))
	db.set_validator(&cif::validator_factory::instance().get(config.get<std::string>("dict")));
	else
	db.load_dictionary();
	if (db.get_validator() == nullptr)
	db.set_validator(&cif::validator_factory::instance().get("mmcif_pdbx.dic"));

When I try this call:

cif-validate file.cif --dict='mmcif_pdbx.dic;dssp-extension.dic'

I get this error:

Dictionary not found or defined (mmcif_pdbx.dic;dssp-extension.dic)

Is multiple-dictionary support actually implemented and I am using it incorrectly, or is the man page documenting a feature that is not yet available?

[mhekkel]

You've certainly hit a bug here. Question is whether the bug is in the documentation or the code.

For now you can of course simply concatenate those two .dic files and use that as dictionary. Not optimal. There is support for multiple dictionaries, a recent extension to libcifpp. That works by defining the dictionaries in the audit_conform category. The new DSSP application uses this, have a look at its output.

I'll keep this issue open until I've fixed either the documentation or the code. Don't know yet how I will handle this.