On Dec 18, 2010, at 3:19 PM, c...@eugeneweb.com wrote: > > >> Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2010 21:56:28 -0700 >> From: John Doty <j...@noqsi.com> >> Subject: Re: gEDA-user: get-package-attribute sometimes returns "?" - >> ID: 3114991 >> >> On Dec 16, 2010, at 9:29 PM, c...@eugeneweb.com wrote: >> >>> I'm not sure we're on the same page here. That pice of legacy code is >>> what we want to remove. We don't want any code to reinterpret >>> attributes. For the short term we would like to change a few >>> probramatic symbols so we don't have to have special cases in the code. >> >> But the "?" is there to tell you, when looking at the symbol in gschem, >> that you *need* to edit the attribute (I use those symbols a lot). > > Yes, agreed that is why it is there. However you may not see it unless you > click on show inhereted attributes, and because they are inherited you can't > delete them. You can only delete the promoted ones after which the inherited > ones take over again. > > Sometimes I use the blocks without the file name, just a value attribute to > get a one liner. Other times I start with one type of block but change it to > another, so I can see cases where a particualr attribute becomes superfluous.
Easy enough to make another symbol. Repeat after me: "the library symbols are only starting points". Everybody has their own working style: the library cannot possibly cover everybody's. > >> I'm puzzled here, because I thought Stuart was the author of both >> spice-sdb and the symbols in question, so the "WTF?" is strange. > > Yes and it is causeing confusion so I would like to find a better way to > handle it. Fix spice-sdb to issue an error rather than ignoring the file. > >> In any case, it seems to me that the user should get an error message >> (from spice-sdb) in this case, as an explicit "?" here means that the >> user has neither set the attribute to something useful nor deleted it as >> irrelevant. > > However the WTF? snipit is allowing it to fail silently. That's right. That's the problem. Better to fix that than to paint over it. > >> John Doty Noqsi Aerospace, Ltd. >> http://www.noqsi.com/ >> j...@noqsi.com > >> Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2010 08:21:45 +0000 >> From: Peter TB Brett <pe...@peter-b.co.uk> >> Subject: Re: gEDA-user: get-package-attribute sometimes returns "?" - >> ID: 3114991 >> >> So what you are saying is that you think we should get rid of the "WTF?" >> function in the code, but not modify the symbol library? >> >> Peter >> >> -- >> Peter Brett <pe...@peter-b.co.uk> >> Remote Sensing Research Group >> Surrey Space Centre > >> Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2010 07:52:15 -0700 >> From: John Doty <j...@noqsi.com> >> Subject: Re: gEDA-user: get-package-attribute sometimes returns "?" - >> ID: 3114991 >> >> On Dec 17, 2010, at 1:21 AM, Peter TB Brett wrote: >> >> I think there's nothing wrong with file=? in the symbols. It indicates >> that the you have failed to supply a required filename. > > Or an optional filename. > >> (create-file-info-list), the "WTF?" function in spice-sdb, should issue >> a diagnostic if the file name is "?". > > Perhaps that could be a quick fix but currently it fails silently. It's the right fix. > > Right now, all that results from >> substituting "unknown" is that it silently omits the file, which is >> surely wrong behavior. You won't even know there's a problem until you >> run SPICE, which has its own troubles with generating diagnostics that >> clearly identify the problem. > > Yes there surely are problems with ambiguous errors though it's common to > reference the wrong file too, and you would still have to fix it at that > level. Sure. But if I put in the wrong filename, my folly is generally obvious. If the problem name is "?", it's more confusing. It apparently confused Stuart, and he's a pretty smart guy. > >> There are other problems with that function, too. Even if you give >> spice-sdb no reason to inspect included file contents (use -I >> --nomunge), it does so anyway. This can make building a subcircuit >> library tricky. If you want the automatic file inclusion for subcircuits >> to work you must build the library in topological order, because the >> included file must exist at netlist generation time even if you're not >> including it at that time, and have no dependence on its contents. >> >> John Doty Noqsi Aerospace, Ltd. >> http://www.noqsi.com/ >> j...@noqsi.com > > Well that might not be that hard to fix, but one thing at a time. It seems > what we want is for the attributes to show up where we can see them eg. have > them promoted. This implicitly suggestes that they need values filled in. We > also need the option of deleting them without them coming back to haunt us > from the inherited attributes. Hierarchy->Down Symbol Delete the offending attribute. File->Save As Hierarchy->Up Delete old symbol, add new in its place. Is that really so hard? > > I think in my original post I suggested something like this. > > Clif > > > _______________________________________________ > geda-user mailing list > geda-user@moria.seul.org > http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user > John Doty Noqsi Aerospace, Ltd. http://www.noqsi.com/ j...@noqsi.com _______________________________________________ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
