kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Lorenzo Marcantonio <l.marcantonio@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Jun 04, 2014 at 07:43:24PM +0200, Tomasz Wlostowski wrote:

> Still, at the beginning of each .kicad_pcb file there is the list of
> associations between the layer ID and the user-assignable layer names. Since
> the names are not always constant, the only constant factor are the IDs. Am
> I wrong?

IIRC the last word is the number. Which is the LAYER_NUM. Layer names
are mapped with that table to the number.

> >- Using layer names also allows a sophisticated notation like *.Cu
> >*.Mask ..., which cannot be done with layers IDs
> 
> [Sorry to sound like an evil corporate manager] How would wildcards in layer
> sets improve the quality of our PCBs or the productivity of our PCB
> designers? ;)

Ahem... first, these shortcuts are simply hardcoded, there is nothing
sophisticated beyond them; AFAIK Dick added them only for better
legibility of the file. So it's only a mapping saying: *.SilkS
= Front.SilkS + Back.SilkS, nothing else (it's only an optional notation
convenience). So it could be said that layer 1234 is equal to both layer
23 and layer 24 (totally random numbers), the system would be the same:D

> >Using in a file format data which reflects the internal coding details
> >of an application is always bad: this is why binary formats are so stupid.
> >I can't agree here. Binary and textual formats have both pros and
> cons. Would you store audio or bitmaps in a text file?

xpm :D

Or on the other hand *anything* based on ASN.1 (except the XML
encoding). The world is full of structured binary formats too; having
a text format simplifies somewhat the interchange (at least on old
versions dwg was simply a bit packed version of dxf... and dxf itself has
a binary encoding).

So binary vs text is mostly arbitrary, unless you get lazy and simply
fwrite your structs (which is what I think you meant).

> >(Unfortunately, there are few place were internal coding appears, like
> >masks in allowed layers, but there are minor parameters)
> >
> Ack.

Really a couple thing only, nothing serious, I agree.

-- 
Lorenzo Marcantonio
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