X-Authentication-Warning: delorie.com: mail set sender to geda-user-bounces using -f
X-Recipient: geda-user AT delorie DOT com
Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2016 16:27:36 +0200 (CEST)
From: Roland Lutz <rlutz AT hedmen DOT org>
To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com
Subject: [geda-user] New XML file format for schematics and symbols
Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.2.11.1607171601340.19102@nimbus>
User-Agent: Alpine 2.11 (DEB 23 2013-08-11)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; format=flowed; charset=US-ASCII
Reply-To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com

Hi,

I just merged a branch which adds support for an alternative, XML-based 
file format for gEDA schematic and symbol files.  You can find a 
description of the new file format here:

   http://hedmen.org/xorn/doc/api/html/geda-xml-format.html

Those parts of gEDA/gaf which use the Xorn libraries for reading files 
(currently, the 'xorn' executable and the new netlister) automatically 
support the new format.  Everything else, including gschem and the old 
netlister, will require some additional work.

To convert a .sch or .sym file to an XML file, use xorn convert:

   $ xorn convert resistor-1.sym resistor-1.sym.xml

and vice versa.  Since the format is automatically guessed from the file 
name, you'll have to specify the format explicitly when reading from stdin 
or writing to stdout:

   $ xorn convert -I sym -O symxml < resistor-1.sym > resistor-1.sym.xml

When converting .sch files to XML files, the symbols and pixmaps 
referenced by the schematic are included in the XML file by default.  In 
order to make this possible, you'll need to specify the symbol library 
directories:

   $ xorn convert --symbol-library=sym/
                  --symbol-library-search=/path/to/library/
       example.sch example.sch.xml

When using the default library included with gEDA, you can't use 
--symbol-library-search=, unfortunately, because it contains symbol name 
conflicts.

If you don't want to include referenced symbols and pixmaps in the XML 
file--for example, because you are keeping everything under version 
control and want to minimize changes--you can pass the options 
--omit-symbols and --omit-pixmaps:

   $ xorn convert --omit-symbols example.sch example.sch.xml

Roland