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Input to the Edit Command

Cells can also be opened for editing within Xic by dragging the name from a file manager and dropping in the main drawing window, or by pressing the Ok or Open buttons in the File Selection panel. Files can also be opened from the Edit buttons in the files, cells, and libraries listing pop-ups in the File Menu. These are all equivalent to opening the cell with the Edit command, so that the information in this section applies in those cases.

The name provided can be a file containing data in a supported archive format, the name of an Xic cell, or a library file. If the name of an archive file is given, the name of the cell to open can follow the file name separated by space. If no cell name is given, the top level cell (the one not used as a subcell by any other cells in the file) is the one opened for editing. If there is more than one top level cell, the user is presented with a pop-up choice menu and asked to make a selection. If the file is a library file, the second argument can be given, and it should be one of the reference names from the library, or the name of a cell defined in the library. If no second name is given, a pop-up listing the library contents will appear, allowing the user to select a reference or cell.

When a cell is written to disk, it is by default written in the format of origin, though a format change can be coerced in the Save As command by supplying a file extension. Explicit conversions can also be performed with the commands in the Convert Menu.

CGX and GDSII files that have been compressed with the GNU gzip program or have been written in compressed form by Xic can be read in directly, whether or not the file name contains the standard ``.gz'' suffix. Support for compressed files extends to CGX and GDSII only (OASIS files use a different compression methodology).

While an input file is being read and processed, a log file is written. This file contains a record of messages emitted during the conversion. If during a conversion an error or warning message is emitted, a file browsing window containing the log file will appear when the conversion is complete, though this can be suppressed by setting the NoPopUpLog variable. These messages also appear on the prompt line during the conversion. The file browser is a read-only version of the text editor window (see 1.4).

When reading an archive file, there is a message updated periodically on the prompt line indicating bytes read. One can abort the read with Ctrl-C, and a `y' response to the resulting prompt. It is advisable to clear the cells from the partially read hierarchy from memory with the Clear button in the Cells Listing pop-up.

In archive file conversions, an alias file (see 9.2) may be created or used. The alias file, which has the same name as the archive file with an extension ``.alias'', contains symbol name mappings between Xic and the archive file. If present, this file is used to translate symbol names when an archive file is read.

When reading in an archive file, various other cell name modifications (see 9.1) may be applied, such as case conversion. Some changes are automatic, such as name changes to avoid conflicts with device library cells. If a name is changed, a warning message is added to the conversion log file indicating the change, and the change may be reflected to the alias file, if enabled.

The header of a GDSII file optionally contains information about fonts, reference libraries, and other things. This information is saved as properties of the top-level cells derived from the file, i.e., those cells that are not used as subcells of another cell in the file. Xic does not use this information, but it will be put back into a GDSII file subsequently written by Xic, as other applications may need this information.

When reading GDSII input, Xic will attempt to map the layer number and data type combinations found in the file to existing Xic layers, and if that fails a new Xic layer will be created. This is described in the section on GDSII layer mapping (9.5).

When reading CIF, layer names are matched to those defined in the current technology in a case-insensitive mode. This differs from native and CGX file types, which use case-sensitive matching. Layers found in the file which do not match any in the technology are created, using default parameters.

The Edit command can access the Internet. The name given to the Edit command can be in the form of a URL, followed by a subset of the ``httpget'' options. The URL must begin with ``http://'' or ``ftp://'', and the file is expected to be suitable Xic input.

The options that can follow the URL are:

-o filename
Ordinarily a temporary file is used for downloading, which is destroyed. The user must save the hierarchy to retain a copy on the user's machine. If this option is given, the downloaded file will be saved in the given file and not destroyed.

$\textstyle \parbox{1.5in}{\tt -u {\it user}\newline -p {\it password}}$
These are the http ``basic'' authentication user/password. Note that these are not the site login/password, which should be part of the URL if needed. Rather, they are for accessing restricted pages through an http server which supports basic authentication.


next up previous contents index
Next: Opening New Cells - Up: The Edit Button: Edit Previous: The Edit Button: Edit   Contents   Index
Stephen R. Whiteley 2006-10-23