40d:Container

Types of containers the game knows are chests, coffers, boxes, cabinets, bags, barrels and bins. Only chests, coffers, bags and boxes are explicitely called container in game as they can be placed as furniture by building. All containers are used to hold items, from personal possessions to gems, beer, quarry bush leaves, and even living creatures, but their use is context-sensitive, so you cannot use your barrels for storing coins, but you can build a bag as a dwarfs personal container analog to a chest.

Barrels, bins and bags

Barrels are wooden or metal containers that are useful for storing items in a food stockpile and are used for alcohol, 2nd-stage cooking items (dwarven syrup, quarry bush leaves, flour and dye), cooked food in a stack of 10 or less, fat and tallow, plants, meat, and fish. They are also used to store seeds (and bags filled with seeds).

Bins are containers, again made from wood or metal, used for for most non-food items. They are sent to all the other stockpiles (with exclusion to the refuse and graveyard piles) and will hold much larger stacks of items, making organizing those endless piles of +giant cave spider silk cloth+ much easier to manage.

Bags are used as both for seed storage and sand collection. These are made from plant fiber or (silk) cloth, leather, or adamantine. Bags can be built as furniture and then function as coffers (below).

Cabinets and "chests"

These two containers are both furniture items only. They must be built in rooms assigned to dwarves in order to function properly. Cabinets are used to store clothing, and chests are used to store everything else.

A rock chest is called a coffer, and a glass chest is called a box, but they are used for the same purpose. Bags can be built as chests, too.