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Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2012 14:14:11 +0100 (CET)
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From: gedau AT igor2 DOT repo DOT hu
Subject: [geda-user] devmap - gsch2pcb wrapper script for pin/footprint remapping
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Reply-To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com

Hello all,

I've released devmap, a minimalistic pinout/footprint script. The
main feature that it wraps gsch2pcb to change pin mapping and/or footprint
of components in a transparent way. It can:
  - apply pin mapping specified in the pinmap attribute of the component; or
  - look up pin mapping, footprint (or by the way any component and pin
    attribute) from a file system database of devices

Internally the script consists of 3 stages: a layer that extracts
component/pin/attribute information from sch file(s) exporting a
simple line based text stream; the middle layer is any script that
modified this list; the third layer applies the modified attribute
list to the sch files and writes them out in temp sch files. At the
end gsch2pcb gets the modified schs.

Advantages of the current implementation:
  - doesn't modify existing tools, can be installed independently, on top
  - minimal overhead for the end user in gschem->pcb work flow
  - understands/reads/writes/depends on .sch only (not .pcb or .net)
  - can be extended easily to do any other transformation between gschem
    and any other tool
  - the script that does the actual transformation does not need to understand
    .sch, but a very simple, line based component/pin/attribute list
    format
  - it is easy to replace the middle layer to support other work flows or
    requirements
  - has been tested with single page schematics, multi-page project with
    and without project file and hierarchic project.

Drawbacks:
  - breaks if sch file format changes
  - does not work on windows (testers needed)
  - is not written in one of the popular modern scripting languages

The project is part of my openhw project hosted on repo.hu; source
can be downloaded from http://repo.hu/projects/openhw/releases/ or
checked out from svn://repo.hu/openhw/projects/util/trunk/devmap

A Debian package is also provided at
http://repo.hu/debian/pool/main/d/devmap/devmap_1.0.0-r134_all.deb

Feedback & suggestions are welcome.

Regards,

Tibor Palinkas