RE: gEDA-user: gnetlist bug report

[Patrick Bernaud <b-patrick@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi again,

Peter Brett writes:
 > [...]
 > 
 >   $ head output.net
 >   .PCB
 >   .REM CREATED BY gEDA GNETLIST
 >   .CON
 >   .COD 2
 > 
 >   .REM FPCBUS_1
 >   J1 E25
 >   .REM FPCBUS_3
 >   J1 E24
 >   .REM FPCBUS_5
 > 
 > What I'm expecting is (c.f. the schematic itself):
 > 
 >   .PCB
 >   .REM CREATED BY gEDA GNETLIST
 >   .CON
 >   .COD 2
 > 
 >   .REM FPCBUS_1
 >   J1 E25 J1 C8
 >   .REM FPCBUS_3
 >   J1 E24 J1 C12
 >   .REM FPCBUS_5
 > 

Yes you are right, I was not looking at the right think.

In fact there is two problems:

 - your onpage-1.sym and offpage-1.sym symbols have a 'graphical='
   attribute which means that they have no electrical
   significance. When gnetlist encounters such a symbol it just
   discards it and does not bother to look at its pins;

 - gnetlist does not take care of multiple netname per segment: if you
   have more than a single 'netname=' attribute on a segment only the
   first one is taken into account. 


One solution for you without touching at gnetlist internals is to:

  - remove the 'graphical=' attribute to the above symbols. It will
    make gnetlist look at the connected net segment. However it will
    trigger some warning as this symbol does not have a refdes or
    special attribute (given the backend you use (redac) it's only a
    matter of warnings on the console, not in the output).

  - to avoid this message, add a 'net=' attribute to each symbol on
    the schematics (and remove the corresponding 'netname=' attribute
    on the net segment). BTW I think it is the recommended way to deal
    with input/output symbols. Anybody can confirm?

  - and you can not add more than one 'netname=' attributes to a
    single net segment but you can add more segments with an attribute
    attached to each, like in:

               +--+          +--+
     netname1  |  |netname2  |  |netname3
    +----------+  +----------+  +----------+

    And now the net are correctly renamed.


Obviously it's only workarounds knowing how gnetlist works
internally. If you are short of time, that's the way to go.

Anyway I will have a look at how to fix that in gnetlist (especially
the more than one 'netname=' per segment issue) and let you know.

Regards,


Patrick