Re: gEDA-user: Documentation for convert_sym README file

[Kipton Moravec <kip@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 2008-09-29 at 22:31 -0500, Kipton Moravec wrote:
> On Mon, 2008-09-29 at 19:19 -0400, Mike Jarabek wrote:
> > Kipton Moravec wrote:
> > You can use this program on the Viewdraw schematics, and all symbol 
> > files, running it should give a brief command line synopsis.  When you 
> > set up your geda project, I would recommend putting the schematics in 
> > one directory, and the symbols in another. Follow one of the tutorials 
> > to configure the geda config files for your project to look in the 
> > symbol directory for your converted symbols, and look for the schematics 
> > in the schematic directory you created.  It's probably good to use the 
> > 'reset-component-library' command to flush the built in list of library 
> > searches in case one of your Viewdraw symbol names clash with one of the 
> > shipped symbol names.  (Look on the wiki at 
> > http://geda.seul.org/wiki/geda:faq-gschem under Gschem 
> > configuration/customization for information on the configuration files.  
> > You will only need a few lines in each to accomplish what you need.  If 
> > you set up your various conversion projects similarly, you can probably 
> > copy the config files from one project to another.)
> > 
> > There is another utility included with the geda distribution called 
> > 'smash_megafile', which will break one of the Viewlogic '.lib' library 
> > files apart into the individual symbol files.  You may need to do this 
> > on one or more Megafiles if you have used any of the stock components.  
> > Do this in a separate directory, as unpacking one of these can create 
> > many small symbol files.  You will have to look at the gschem output log 
> > to see which files should be copied into your symbol directory.
> > 
> > The process is somewhat manual, but can get the job done with some patience.
> > 
> > Note that not all the Viewdraw attributes map into geda equivalents, so 
> > you may have to use gattrib on the resulting schematic to pound them 
> > into shape if you are planning to go to layout with PCB.
> > 
> > It's been quite a while since I have played with these utilities, so 
> > please let us know how things work out.
> > > I do not know how to find the README. Can someone give me the full path
> > > to the README for convert_sym?
> > >
> 
> Since I am so bad at Linux, and the files were originally Windows 98
> files, I went into the COMMAND line and did a 
> 
> dir /B *.* >dir.txt
> 
> That put each file on a separate line in the dir.txt file.
> 
> Then I imported it into Excel. 
> 
> The first column was "convert_sym"
> The second column was the file name I imported. 
> The third file was the redirected output. >filename.
> 
> Then I made sure the column widths were wide enough for the longest
> name. saved it as "dir.xls", then saved again as a space delimited file
> "dir.prn"
> Copied it back to the Linux computer and was ready to go.
>  
> There were a few surprises. 
> 
> First the DOS text file had /r appended to each name. A friend of mine
> who knows Linux stopped by while his son was at 9:00 p.m to 10:00 p.m.
> hockey practice. (??!!) he loaded some dos2unix conversion program which
> removed the /r from the files.
> 
> All of the Viewdraw symbols ended in .1 I changed the ".1" to ".sym".
> Which did not work. All ".1" had to be changed to "-1.sym" to match what
> was converted in the schematic.
> 
> Next gotcha was that DOS had mixed case names. The conversion program
> assumed everything was lower case. Fortunately Excel has a lower()
> function.
> 
> Last gotcha was my "heavy" symbols were like "C0_1-50V-0603.1" When the
> symbol was used in the schematic the "-" was converted to "_". So the
> schematic was looking for "c0_1_50v_0603-1.sym"
> 
> We made a gafrc file and put 
> (component-library "./symbols") 
> 
> in it. It did not work. So we put 
> (reset-component-library) 
> 
> in the beginning of the gafrc and it worked. We got all symbols in
> except the ground symbol. Which was native to the ViewDraw, and I did
> not have the viewdraw megafile, to get it from. So we removed the 
> 
> (reset-component-library)
> 
> and it pulled it from the default library. The only problem was that it
> did not connect to the net line. The spacing was off. (minor problem).
> 
> Thank goodness I had Excel, it made fast work of it especially with all
> the mods to the names as we learned more.
> 
> I had 1297 symbols and 1827 pages of schematics.
> 
> Took about two hours with the help of my Linux friend for the last hour.
> 
> There are some attribute problems I have to look into yet, but it
> appears to be mostly working. That is the problem for tomorrow.
> 
> Kip 
> 

Well it looks like I spoke too fast.  None of the attributes of the
resistors, or capacitors transferred, so all resistors and capacitors
have no values or no sizes.

In fact none of the attributes transferred including the part name. Just
pin numbers and pin names and reference designators.

Kip  


-- 
Kipton Moravec AE5IB
"Always do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest."
--Mark Twain




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