kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Dick Hollenbeck <dick@...>]

There is definitely some advantage to using XML for design data like 
this. XML is however, only a syntactic envelope, and the grammar is up 
to the designer. As far as grammar is concerned, you have to be 
impressed with the thought given to the Specctra format, at least for 
PCB stuff (schematics not addressed here). If a system were to use an 
XML syntax to hold the specctra grammar, then this would be the best of 
both worlds.


I like XML because you can in theory use XSLT processors and you can 
easily write parsers in a large number of languages, including Java, 
Python, Perl, C++, etc. It is easily extensible.


I like the Specctra grammar because many folks developing competing PCB 
layout tools have already crossed the bridge to this format, and it 
tends to represent a common denominator on how to represent a PCB 
design, making it sort of a market standard on file interchange. One 
thing I don't see in it is text strings for stencils.


Frank, it would be interesting to see what your roadmap is for this 
project, a simple list of goals and objectives. Maybe others might 
want to help you.


Dick



> --- In kicad-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Jonas Diemer <diemer@...> wrote:
>
> > Cool. 
> >
> > But why is it a separate sf-project? Shouldn't it be in the KiCAD
> code (being 
>
> > an importer/converter specifically for KiCAD)?
>
> EDIF2KiCad maybe just because of the name but I thought about 
> this and the size of the KiCad distribution is already hugh. 
> EDIF and XML are suspose to be standards for moving between CAE
> applications (XML4EDA was already taken, no files since 2001). I 
> just began XML4PCB with EDIF/XML to KiCad as a starting place; 
> but then except for GnuEda everything else is proprierty. A library
> organizer, foot pad, part list organizer,editor with a neutral data
> base would be another good candidate for a new, separate project! 
> (I saw a reference to a NASA parts system based on XML)
>
> Frank
>
> > Best regards