ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with some general aspects concerning the approaches which have been or could be used to infer structural information from the experimental functions which contain it. Three-dimensional descriptions, such as coordination geometries, can only be inferred by interpreting features of the radial curves and/or can be assumed as models and showed to be consistent with experimental data. An ionic solution of an MXn salt behaves towards X-ray diffraction essentially as a three-component system involving cation, anion, and water. This obviously produces a great simplification in interpreting the structure, but prevents from gaining direct information about the orientation of water molecules. The data analysis in real space is particularly useful when looking for a first-level picture of the structure. In fact, a radial function exhibits structural information in a more direct way than its counterpart in s-space, and it contains many features which have an immediate physical interpretation.
