Wiswesser Line Notation

Wiswesser Line Notation, also referred to as WLN, was the first line notation that precisely describes complex molecules. The notation is simple, so that trained chemists as well as computers can translate it. It was invented by William J. Wiswesser in 1949.

The keypunch was the main data entry device when WLN was developed. Keypunches could only type capital letters(A-Z), numbers(0-9), and a few special characters(& / -). So, the symbols used in WLN were limited so that they could be stored on punched cards.

 Examples 
 1V1: acetone
 2O2: diethyl ether
 1VR: acetophenone
 L66J BMR& DSWQ  IN1&1: 6-dimethylamino-4-phenylamino-naphthalene-2-sulfonic acid

Related pages
 Simplified molecular input line entry specification (SMILES)
 International Chemical Identifier (InChI)

 References 

Other websites

 Everything Old is New Again: Wiswesser Line Notation (WLN)

Category:Chemical nomenclature
Category:Cheminformatics