Replacing Label Text with SKILL

I have a library with a few hundred cells, half of which have layouts
that contain multiple labels whose text I would like to change. In
each layout, there is one label with text 'VDD' that I would like to
change to 'vdd!', and there is another label with text 'VSS' that I
would like to change to 'gnd!'. The schematics are already correct.
Is there a way to do this with SKILL code? Thanks.

 

This is absolutely phenomenal... it worked perfectly! I am forever
indebted to you...

 

Bernd is a long-time valued member of comp.cad.cadence who writes good
SKILL.

Since his short SKILL snippet seemed to be useful as a basic example of
SKILL coding, I took the liberty of running a quick Virtuoso DFII CIW:
Tools -> SKILL -> Survey on it to check for "syntactical goodness" and
sending the results back to Bernd as a courtesy to him.

That almost-instant SKILL Survey reported Bernd's SKILL example
contained 15 function calls, 14 of which were known Cadence-defined
public functions and 1 was a user-defined function. The one user
defined-function didn't start with a capital-letter prefix; so, in the
suggested snippet below, I made that one trivially minor modification
so as to propagate code that 100% meets Cadence recommendations.

Of the 14 other function calls, none have been changed or deleted in
any release since IC44x up to and including the IC610 release slated
for Q4 release this year. Two functions didn't exist in IC434, namely
dbOpenCellViewByType, and,
ddGetObj
so the sample SKILL code won't work with IC434 - but that's ancient
DFII software so that's not of great import to the vast majority of
users...

Other than those inconsequential issues, this simple SKILL coding
example should work for all users of IC440 up to and including IC610
based on the results of this quick painless two-minute SKILL Survey
(which each of you can run yourselves if you have the product #900
SKILL Development Environment license which puts the "Tools -> SKILL
Development Environment" menu on your VIrtuoso DFII command interpreter
window.

As always, thanks for taking the time to help others,
John Gianni
--
Nothing stated by me is prior reviewed nor is it sanctioned by anyone!

; MyReplaceLabels.il (passed syntactical goodness IC440 to IC610)
procedure( MyReplaceLabels( libName viewName "tt" )
let( ( d_libId d_cvId l_cellList l_labelList )
d_libId = ddGetObj( libName )
l_cellList = setof(
d_cell d_libId~>cells
member( viewName d_cell~>views~>name )
)
foreach( d_cell l_cellList
d_cvId = dbOpenCellViewByType( libName d_cell~>name viewName nil "a"
)
l_labelList = setof( d_shape d_cvId~>shapes d_shape~>objType ==
"label" )
foreach( d_label l_labelList
case( d_label~>theLabel
( "VDD"
d_label~>theLabel = "vdd!"
)
( "VSS"
d_label~>theLabel = "gnd!"
)
) ;; close case
)
dbSave( d_cvId )
dbClose( d_cvId )
)
)
)
; End of MyReplaceLabels.il

 

Here's a related sample from the SKILL Training class database. Of
course, this passed the "DFII->SKILL->Survey" or I wouldn't have posted
it as example SKILL code.

You can also try the more general-purpose "JayChangeLabel.il" SKILL
example in solution #1835335.

For specific label character-conversion, see the Cadence Customer
Support CCSchangeCharInLabel.il SKILL example in solution #11091278 and
the CCSchangeLabelDelimiter.il SKILL example in solution #11094824.

There's also a product change request (PCR 586533) asking for
leHiSearch() to be able to modify substrings of labels which you can
ask your support personnel to keep you abreast of.

As always, to help others with each posting,
John Gianni
--
Nothing posted by me is prior reviewed nor is it sanctioned by anyone!

/*
TrChangeStrings.il

This SKILL sample will search all the labels in your layout view,
and judge whether the labels contain the old-string you want
to replace, and then rename them to the desired new-string.

TrChangeStrings( "oldString" "newString" )
-OR-
TrChangeStrings( "oldString" "newString" t );==> test mode won't save
changes

Ex. TrChangeStrings( "VDD" "vdd!" )
Ex. TrChangeStrings( "VDD" "vdd!" t )

The number of labels changed per cell will be reported along with
the total number of labels changed.
*/

procedure( TrChangeStrings( oldstring newstring @optional (test nil) )
let( ( cv cnt (totalcnt 0) (view "layout") )
cv=geGetEditCellView()
cnt=0
when( test printf("*** TEST MODE *** changes not saved\n") )
foreach( shape cv~>shapes
;when( shape~>objType == "label" && shape~>theLabel ==
oldstring
when( shape~>objType == "label" && rexMatchp(oldstring
shape~>theLabel
)
;shape~>theLabel = newstring
rexCompile(oldstring)
shape~>theLabel = rexReplace(shape~>theLabel newstring 0)
cnt++
) ; when label
) ; foreach shape
unless( test dbSave( cv ))
printf("%s %s : %d labels changed\n" cv~>cellName view cnt)
totalcnt = totalcnt + cnt
printf("** Total labels changed : %d\n" totalcnt)
when( test printf("*** TEST MODE *** changes not saved\n") )
) ; let
) ; procedure TrChangeLabels
~
~

 

John or Bernd,

Please post this SKILL code on the Cadence user community forum at
http://www.cdnusers.org/Forums/tabid/52/view/topics/forumid/62/Default.aspx.

Linda M

 

Hi Linda,

I posted five of the aforementioned example SKILL programs which modify
label & pin text to the suggested cdnusers.org "Custom IC > Shared
code - SKILL" forum.

The cdnusers.org thread is titled:
"SKILL examples to modify Virtuoso label text on schematic & layout"

It has the cdnusers.org Forum ID of:
http://www.cdnusers.org/Forums/tabid/52/forumid/62/postid/1877/view/topic/Default.aspx

I only posted those five SKILL examples which had passed the Virtuoso
CIW: Tools -> SKILL -> Survey so as to provide examples of SKILL code
which not only work in the release the Customer is using ... but also
to serve as good SKILL programming examples for modification as needed.

Hope these SKILL examples help to inspire the Virtuoso in everyone!
John Gianni

 

Hi Linda, Hi John,
with all respect for the effort put into the work, I do not think that a
bulletin board service like the one used on cdnusers is appropriate to
capture the current knowledge of the cadence community. Lately a concept
called Wiki has emerged to enable a community to do collaborative editing
of knowledge in written form. Currently Wikipedia at www.wikipedia.org is
the best example of such a working common knowledge collection.

In my opinion, MediaWiki (the engine that drives Wikipedia) should also be
installed on cdsnuser in order to consolidate the knowledge of the
community in a format where the content can be edited at any point by any
user.

The nature of a buletin board system, like the one used currently on
cdnusers, is not to capture knowledge, but to capture opinions of
individuals in a discussion chain, much like USENET already has provided
for years. The search function of such a bulletin board system is not an
argument to use it as most useres do not know how to search, or to select
the proper keywords for the search and then choose to ask a questioin that
has already been asked many times before. (This is also a weakness of
USENET, or _any_ system that has to do with user support.) USENET is in my
opinion still superior to any bulletin board system as it is focused on
textual content, as bulletin board systems put focus on looking good.

Most bulletin boards systems do not allow the user to edit content written
by other users. This make it difficult to correct SKILL code posted to the
board without creating a copy. This limitation is also present in USENET
articles, but proper threading of articles can keep the level of confusion
a bit lower.

I guess that few cadence users have had much contact with a Wiki. In my
organisation there are very few who has discovered how much easier it is to
keep common knowledge up to date with a wiki than with _any_ other database
system. It seem to take longer time to accept that content can be edited by
anyone, and that the content do not belong to anyone but the community.

If I had had space myself to start a CadenceWiki I would have done that a
long time ago. The problem is to find a suitable ISP or organisation to
host the wiki. Now, cdnusers seem to have space for a bulletin board
system, and I hope you have time and space to install a MediaWiki dedicated
to capturing common knowledge on use of Cadence EDA tools.

Kind regards,