gEDA-user: New gnucap development snapshot

[Al Davis <ad82@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

There is a new development snapshot of gnucap available.

This one adds parameters to subcircuits, and the ability to give 
parameter values as parameters, recursively.

You can do something like ....

.subckt foo (a b)
R1 (a b) w
R2 (b 0) z
.ends

x1 (1 2) w=13 z=56
x2 (2 3) w=h z=45

.param h=33

Parameters are reinterpreted whenever the param 
command/statement is given ...

.print op v(nodes)
.op

----evaluates with h=33

.param h=556
.op 
---- evaluates with h=556

.param bar=94 h=bar
.op 
---- evaluates with h=94

etc ...

param also works as a command, so you can play...


There's also a new "option"  ... "recursion", with default value 
of 20.  It specifies how many times you can define a parameter 
in terms of another.  The only reason for a limit is to protect 
against things like ..  ".param a=b b=c c=d d=e e=a" .

Bug fixes:

The underscore kluge is removed.  It is no longer necessary to 
start parameters with underscore.   You still can if you want 
to.

Non-bugs that may look like bugs:

Parsing is more critical than it used to be.  If it doesn't 
parse like you think it should, surround the nodes with 
parentheses, and the parameters with parentheses.  Ordinarily, 
the parentheses are optional, but sometimes they are needed to 
handle an otherwise ambiguous parse..
example ...
"x1 a b c d e f g h i j"
obviously (?) means:
"x1 (a b c) d (e=f g=h i=j)"


New bugs:

There is some duplication of commons, which results in some 
reduction of efficiency, both in time and space.  Therefore 
this version runs somewhat slower than it should, and takes 
somewhat more memory.  This bug will probably hang around for a 
month or two, because adding some models is higher priority.

Old bugs remaining:

The manual and web page have not been updated since the last 
"stable" release 0.34.

You can get it at: 
Official site:
http://www.gnucap.org/devel/gnucap-2006-01-08.tar.gz
Mirrors:
http://www.geda.seul.org/dist/gnucap-2006-01-08.tar.gz