CML to SMILES Converter
CML is readable but bulky. Convert it to SMILES when you need something compact to store, search or pass to another tool.
Typical source of CML files
CML turns up in chemistry-aware XML pipelines: electronic lab notebooks, instrument exports, open-data repositories and any system built on XML rather than on a cheminformatics toolkit. It is verbose and rarely supported directly by molecular software, which is why converting to SMILES is a common first step before doing anything useful with the structure.
What survives the conversion
Atoms, bonds, formal charges and explicit stereochemistry are preserved. Atom-level properties
stored in CML <scalar> elements are dropped, since SMILES has nowhere to put
them — copy those into your own field before converting if they matter.
Multi-molecule CML
A single CML document can hold many molecules, either as separate top-level entries or as siblings inside a list. One SMILES per molecule is produced, in document order, so you can map the output back to the source by position.
Round-tripping
Going CML → SMILES → CML will not reproduce the original file: namespaces, ids, titles and custom properties are lost in the first step and not invented in the second. Use this conversion when you want the structure, not when you want to preserve the document.