Simplified Molecular-input Line-entry System - Terminology

Terminology

The term SMILES refers to a line notation for encoding molecular structures and specific instances should strictly be called SMILES strings. However, the term SMILES is also commonly used to refer to both a single SMILES string and a number of SMILES strings; the exact meaning is usually apparent from the context. The terms Canonical and Isomeric can lead to some confusion when applied to SMILES. The terms describe different attributes of SMILES strings and are not mutually exclusive.

Typically, a number of equally valid SMILES can be written for a molecule. For example, CCO, OCC and C(O)C all specify the structure of ethanol. Algorithms have been developed to ensure the same SMILES is generated for a molecule regardless of the order of atoms in the structure. This SMILES is unique for each structure, although dependent on the canonicalization algorithm used to generate it, and is termed the Canonical SMILES. These algorithms first convert the SMILES to an internal representation of the molecular structure and do not simply manipulate strings as is sometimes thought. Various algorithms for generating Canonical SMILES have been developed, including those by Daylight Chemical Information Systems, OpenEye Scientific Software, MEDIT, Chemical Computing Group, MolSoft LLC, and the Chemistry Development Kit. A common application of Canonical SMILES is indexing and ensuring uniqueness of molecules in a database.

SMILES notation allows the specification of configuration at tetrahedral centers, and double bond geometry. These are structural features that cannot be specified by connectivity alone and SMILES which encode this information are termed Isomeric SMILES. A notable feature of these rules is that they allow rigorous partial specification of chirality. The term Isomeric SMILES is also applied to SMILES in which isotopes are specified.