--- /dev/null
+#ifndef __VIENNA_RNA_PACKAGE_RNASTRUCT_H__
+#define __VIENNA_RNA_PACKAGE_RNASTRUCT_H__
+
+/**
+ * \file RNAstruct.h
+ * \brief Parsing and Coarse Graining of Structures
+ *
+ * Example:
+ * \verbatim
+ * .((..(((...)))..((..)))). is the bracket or full tree
+ * becomes expanded: - expand_Full() -
+ * ((U)(((U)(U)((((U)(U)(U)P)P)P)(U)(U)(((U)(U)P)P)P)P)(U)R)
+ * HIT: - b2HIT() -
+ * ((U1)((U2)((U3)P3)(U2)((U2)P2)P2)(U1)R)
+ * Coarse: - b2C() -
+ * ((H)((H)M)R)
+ * becomes expanded: - expand_Shapiro() -
+ * (((((H)S)((H)S)M)S)R)
+ * weighted Shapiro: - b2Shapiro() -
+ * ((((((H3)S3)((H2)S2)M4)S2)E2)R)
+ * \endverbatim
+ */
+
+#define STRUC 2000
+
+/**
+ * \brief Converts the full structure from bracket notation to the HIT
+ * notation including root.
+ *
+ * \param structure
+ * \return
+ */
+char *b2HIT(const char *structure); /* Full -> HIT [incl. root] */
+
+/**
+ * \brief Converts the full structure from bracket notation to the a
+ * coarse grained notation using the 'H' 'B' 'I' 'M' and 'R' identifiers.
+ *
+ * \param structure
+ * \return
+ */
+char *b2C(const char *structure); /* Full -> Coarse [incl. root] */
+
+/**
+ * \brief Converts the full structure from bracket notation to the
+ * <i>weighted</i> coarse grained notation using the 'H' 'B' 'I' 'M' 'S' 'E' and
+ * 'R' identifiers.
+ *
+ * \param structure
+ * \return
+ */
+char *b2Shapiro(const char *structure); /* Full -> weighted Shapiro [i.r.] */
+
+/**
+ * \brief Adds a root to an un-rooted tree in any except bracket notation.
+ *
+ * \param structure
+ * \return
+ */
+char *add_root(const char *structure); /* {Tree} -> ({Tree}R) */
+
+/**
+ * \brief Inserts missing 'S' identifiers in unweighted coarse grained structures
+ * as obtained from b2C().
+ *
+ * \param coarse
+ * \return
+ */
+char *expand_Shapiro(const char *coarse);
+
+/* add S for stacks to coarse struct */
+/**
+ * \brief Convert the full structure from bracket notation to the
+ * expanded notation including root.
+ *
+ * \param structure
+ * \return
+ */
+char *expand_Full(const char *structure); /* Full -> FFull */
+
+/**
+ * \brief Restores the bracket notation from an expanded full or HIT tree, that is
+ * any tree using only identifiers 'U' 'P' and 'R'.
+ *
+ * \param ffull
+ * \return
+ */
+char *unexpand_Full(const char *ffull); /* FFull -> Full */
+
+/**
+ * \brief Strip weights from any weighted tree.
+ *
+ * \param wcoarse
+ * \return
+ */
+char *unweight(const char *wcoarse); /* remove weights from coarse struct */
+
+/**
+ * \brief Converts two aligned structures in expanded notation.
+ *
+ * Takes two aligned structures as produced by
+ * tree_edit_distance() function back to bracket notation with '_'
+ * as the gap character. The result overwrites the input.
+ *
+ * \param align
+ */
+void unexpand_aligned_F(char *align[2]);
+
+/**
+ * \brief Collects a statistic of structure elements of the full structure in
+ * bracket notation.
+ *
+ * The function writes to the following global variables:
+ * #loop_size, #loop_degree, #helix_size, #loops, #pairs, #unpaired
+ *
+ * \param structure
+ * \return
+ */
+void parse_structure(const char *structure); /* make structure statistics */
+
+/**
+ * \brief contains a list of all loop sizes. loop_size[0] contains the
+ * number of external bases.
+ */
+extern int loop_size[STRUC]; /* loop sizes of a structure */
+
+/**
+ * \brief contains a list of all stack sizes.
+ */
+extern int helix_size[STRUC]; /* helix sizes of a structure */
+
+/**
+ * \brief contains the corresponding list of loop degrees.
+ */
+extern int loop_degree[STRUC]; /* loop degrees of a structure */
+
+/**
+ * \brief contains the number of loops ( and therefore of stacks ).
+ */
+extern int loops; /* n of loops and stacks */
+
+/**
+ * \brief contains the number of unpaired bases.
+ */
+extern int unpaired;
+
+/**
+ * \brief contains the number of base pairs in the last parsed structure.
+ */
+extern int pairs; /* n of unpaired digits and pairs */
+
+#endif