[Magic-dev] Custom dstyle and cmap files

[R. Timothy Edwards]

Dear Graham,

>    I found custom styletypes work, but I don't think it's a good choice for me.
>    Users who want to view my cells will need to use my custom tech file because
> I use new layer synonyms and have an extra abutmentbox plane defined. This can
> be done by loading Magic and calling the tech file from the command line:
> 
> $ magic -T ../../etc/pharosc -D xnr2v0x1

But I'm not sure why you prefer this method over putting "tech load ..."
in the .magicrc file, to avoid having to specify a techfile on the
command line.  Any number of things can be coded into the command-line
parsing, but there's a point at which it is just a pain to require users
to remember the entire project setup when typing in the command line.
To me, the preferred method is to have a README file that says
"project setup instructions:  copy this .magicrc file to your project
working directory".  This is what every other EDA tool does, as well,
except that Cadence insists on throwing a bunch of useless crap into
your home directory and declaring 500 environment variables that
interfere with the way everything else runs under UNIX.  At least magic
isn't that rude.

So. . . is it just that I have not yet got around to correcting the
warning message that prints out when the techfile is changed from
inside .magicrc?  There is another halfway reasonable solution which
is to allow the search paths to be set from inside the techfile.  Of
course, what I'd really like to see is that every techfile declaration
should be a command in magic, then the techfile is just a command file
that can be sourced, and can contain statements like "path sys ...".
But that's a rather long-term project.  Instead, I would suggest
extending the "styletype <style>" statement in the techfile to be:

	styletype <style> [<path>]

which would cause magic to first prepend <path> (if specified) to the
system search path.  The fallback position can always be to load the
"mos" styles if all else fails.

					Regards,
					Tim

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| Dr. R. Timothy Edwards (Tim)   | email: tim at opencircuitdesign.com    |
| Open Circuit Design, Inc.	 | web:   http://opencircuitdesign.com |
| 22815 Timber Creek Lane        | phone: (301) 528-9364               |
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