[gmx-developers] Free Format gro File

[Mark Abraham]

On 2/10/2012 8:06 AM, Jicun Li wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
>
> Would you please tell me why Gromacs do not use free format for gro file?

Probably, the format was chosen when Fortran77 was the dominant language 
that was going to parse it, and fixed-format is hugely easier to code 
with in native F77. Same for the .pdb format.

> How can I modify the source code to support the free format gro file? 
> Thank you very much.

You could do that, but what's the advantage?

Mark