kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Oliver Walters <oliver.henry.walters@xxxxxxxxx>]

Wayne,

Here is the issue I am facing. Maybe I have misunderstood the process, or
maybe I have found a bug.

1. Load simple legacy project and attempt to remap. Failures across the
board.
[image: Inline image 1]

2. Check the sym-lib-table

[image: Inline image 2]


3. Confirm that the symbols do actually exist in the loaded libs


[image: Inline image 3]

4. No dice

[image: Inline image 4]

5. Try again?

[image: Inline image 5]

6. Weep, etc

What am I doing wrong?

Oliver

On Thu, Dec 14, 2017 at 10:41 AM, Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

> On 12/13/2017 01:56 AM, Oliver Walters wrote:
> > I finally had a chance to try the symbol remapping on a real project,
> > and I have a few thoughts on how I think it could be improved from a
> > users perspective (with code to back up my thoughts!)
> >
> > 1. "Remap" should replace "rescue"
> >
> > The remap tool, with some work, should replace the "symbol rescue" tool.
> > There are two major cases which it should cover:
> >
> > a) Handling "legacy" (v4 and prior) symbols which do not specify a
> > library nickname
> > b) Handling missing libraries or symbols
> >  i) A library has been moved or deleted
> > ii) An item has been renamed in a library
>
>
> These are two distinctly different processes and need to stay separate.
> Please do not merge them.
>
> >
> > The rescue tool does not seem to work at all now, with the new
> > sym-lib-table approach. I think I have come up with a way to combine the
> > two tools that provides a better approach anyhow.
>
> Please explain.  The last testing I did, both the legacy and fully
> defined LIB_ID rescue works as required.  Are you saying if you delete
> or modify a library symbol used in a schematic with a fully defined
> LIB_ID that is does not get rescued properly from the cache library?  If
> so, please file a bug report so I can fix it.
>
> >
> > 2. Let users "remap" multiple times.
> >
> > The current implementation only allows remap if *all* the symbols are
> > un-mapped. If a partial remap occurs then the users are left high and
> > dry. Partial remaps should be allowed, this gives the users chance to
> > fix their library tables or whatever.
>
> I'm not opposed to this but only for symbols that do not already have a
> library nickname assigned to the schematic symbol LIB_ID.  Once a symbol
> is remapped and mapping is correct, the only other valid operation is to
> choose a new symbol.  I would reject any change that fell back to
> looking up symbols by name alone (no library).  This was the entire
> point of the remapping and would reintroduce the bug that has been
> around since the beginning of the project.
>
> >
> > 3. Separate project-remap from symbol-remap
> >
> > The regeneration of library tables should be separate from symbol
> > remapping. Rescue the project once, (with a visible warning to user at
> > first project load, as is currently the case). But, allow symbol remap
> > from the menu at any stage (even if there are no symbols to remap!)
>
> This will likely not work because more often than not, successful
> remapping depends on the project specific symbol libraries not just the
> global symbol libraries.  This is why the remapping utility first
> creates a project specific symbol library table based upon the libraries
> it needs (contains symbols used in the schematic) from the old library
> list.  Keep in mind, the remapping does not just look for the first
> occurrence of a symbol with a given name in the symbol library table
> (that would be broken), it actually matches the full file path and file
> name from the symbol library table to do the mapping.  There is a bug
> where symlinks will get mapped as a different library.  I have a fix for
> that but I have had time to test it.
>
> >
> > 4. Group similar symbols together when remapping
> >
> > If a schematic has 100+ 'R' symbols, they should be grouped together so
> > that they can *all* be remapped at once. Collect similar symbols
> > together. (See demonstrator image below).
>
> Nice but not crucial to the remapping.  Sorting could be added to the
> existing remapping feature as well.
>
> >
> > 5. Allow manual remap selection
> >
> > If auto-remapping fails for a particular symbol, allow the user to
> > select a new symbol manually
>
> This isn't really remapping.  This is reassigning a library symbol.  If
> a symbol cannot be located in any library in the old library list, there
> is no way to recover it.  This was true before the switch to fully
> defined LIB_IDs.
>
> >
> > 6. Allow skipping of remapped symbols
> >
> > Some may be not able to be remaped at the current time. Allow user to
> > skip and come back later.
>
> Do you really want listen to users scream about broken symbol links?
> Keep in mind, once the remapping is complete, all of the old libraries
> from the symbol library table are removed from the project files so they
> are no longer available for future remapping which will almost certainly
> lead to issues.  I will reject keeping the old library list in tact as
> it was part of the original issue.
>
> >
> > 7. Provide a dry-run first and let the user see what is happening.
>
> I'm fine with a dry run feature.  I had it on my todo list but if you
> get to it before I do.  My feelings wont be hurt.
>
> >
> >
> > I have actually implemented all of the points above. See demonstrator
> > images here:
> >
> > A) Dry run with explicit output messages, and information on what will
> > be changed
> >
> > Inline image 1
> >
> > B) Success!
> >
> > Inline image 2
> >
> > If this is a good approach I will spend some more time on this, there
> > are still some issues to work out. However, It is (to me) a much cleaner
> > approach.
> >
> > Thoughts?
> >
> > Oliver
> >
> >
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