The four atom IDs required are indexes into the SMARTS pattern, which starts at atom 0 (zero). The angle supplied is in degrees. The two atoms used to set the dihedral angle <atom1> and <atom4> do not need to be connected to the atoms of the bond <atom2> and <atom3> in any way.
The order of the atoms matters -- the portion of the molecule attached to <atom1> and <atom2> remain fixed, but the portion bonded to <atom3> and & <atom4> moves.
To set the value of the first dihedral angle to 90 degrees:
"obrotate 'c1ccncc1CCC' pyridines.sdf 5 6 7 8 90"
Here 6 and 7 define the bond to rotate in the SMARTS patter, i.e., c1-C and atoms 5 and 8 define the particular dihedral angle to rotate.
Since the atoms to define the dihedral do not need to be directly connected, the nitrogen in the pyridine can be used:
"obrotate 'c1ccncc1CCC' pyridines.sdf 4 6 7 8 90"
Keep the pyridyl ring fixed and moves the aliphatic chain:
"obrotate 'c1ccncc1CCC' pyridines.sdf 5 6 7 8 90"
Keep the aliphatic chain fixed and move the pyridyl ring:
"obrotate 'c1ccncc1CCC' pyridines.sdf 8 7 6 5 90"
The web pages for Open Babel can be found at: <>
A guide for constructing SMARTS patterns can be found at: <>
An -nosplit Open Babel is developed by a cast of many, including currrent maintainers An Geoff Hutchison , An Chris Morley , An Michael Banck , and innumerable others who have contributed fixes and additions. For more contributors to Open Babel, see <>
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation version 2 of the License.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.