Variables
The operation of Spice3f5 may be affected by setting variables with the set command. In addition to the variables mentioned below, the set command also affects the behaviour of the simulator via the options described under the section on .OPTIONS.
The variables which may be altered by the set command are:
appendwrite- Append to the file when a write command is issued, if one already exists.
colorN- The colours of plots drawn by the older plotting code (see
oldplot), and ofhardcopyoutput:set color2 = "rgb:00/ff/00", with two hexadecimal digits each for red, green and blue. N is from 0 to 19: color0 is the background, color1 the grid and text, and color2 onwards the vectors in order. The Qt plot windows have their own colours, chosen with Plot Options. combplot- Plot vectors by drawing a vertical line from each point to the X-axis, as opposed to joining the points. Note that this option is subsumed in the plottype option, below.
cpdebug- Print cshpar debugging information (must be compiled with the -DCPDEBUG flag). Unsupported in the current release.
debug- If set then a lot of debugging information is printed (must be compiled with the -DFTEDEBUG flag). Unsupported in the current release.
diff_abstol- The absolute tolerance used by the diff command.
diff_reltol- The relative tolerance used by the diff command.
diff_vntol- The absolute voltage tolerance used by the diff command.
echo- Print out each command before it is executed.
filetype- This can be either ascii or binary, and determines the format of the rawfiles written. The default is ascii.
fourgridsize- How many points to use for interpolating into when doing fourier analysis.
gridsize- If this variable is set to an integer, this number is used as the number of equally spaced points to use for the Y-axis when plotting. Otherwise the current scale is used (which may not have equally spaced points). If the current scale isn't strictly monotonic, then this option has no effect.
hcopydev- If this is set, when the hardcopy command is run the resulting file is automatically printed on the printer named hcopydev with the command lpr -Phcopydev -g file.
hcopyfont- This variable specifies the font name for hardcopy output plots. The value is device dependent.
hcopyfontsize- This is a scaling factor for the font used in hardcopy plots.
hcopydevtype- This variable specifies the type of the printer output to use in the hardcopy command. If hcopydevtype is not set, plot (5) format is assumed. The standard distribution currently recognizes postscript as an alternative output format. When used in conjunction with hcopydev, hcopydevtype should specify a format supported by the printer.
height- The length of the page for asciiplot and print col.
history- The number of events to save in the history list.
keepsteps- Keep the plots of the individual runs of a stepped simulation (see .step); normally only the merged plot is kept.
level- How many commands the newhelp command lists:
beginner(the default),intermediateoradvanced. lprplot5- This is a printf(3s) style format string used to specify the command to use for sending plot(5)-style plots to a printer or plotter. The first parameter supplied is the printer name, the second parameter supplied is a file name containing the plot. Both parameters are strings. It is trivial to cause Spice3f5 to abort by supplying a unreasonable format string.
lprps- This is a printf(3s) style format string used to specify the command to use for sending PostScript plots to a printer or plotter. The first parameter supplied is the printer name, the second parameter supplied is a file name containing the plot. Both parameters are strings. It is trivial to cause Spice3f5 to abort by supplying a unreasonable format string.
nfreqs- The number of frequencies to compute in the fourier command. (Defaults to 10.)
noasciiplotvalue- Don't print the first vector plotted to the left when doing an asciiplot.
nobreak- Don't have asciiplot and print col break between pages.
noclobber- Don't overwrite existing files when doing IO redirection.
noglob- Don't expand the global characters `*', `?', `[', and `]'. This is the default.
nogrid- Don't plot a grid when graphing curves (but do label the axes).
nomoremode- If nomoremode is not set, whenever a large amount of data is being printed (e.g. the print or asciiplot commands), the output is stopped every screenful and continues when a carriage return is typed. If nomoremode is set then data scrolls without check.
nonomatch- If noglob is unset and a global expression cannot be matched, use the global characters literally instead of complaining.
noprintscale- Don't print the scale in the leftmost column when a print col command is given.
nosort- Don't have display sort the variable names.
numdgt- The number of digits to print when printing tables of data (fourier, print col). The default precision is 6 digits. Double precision gives approximately 16 decimal digits, so numdgt should not be more than 16. If the number is negative, one fewer digit is printed to ensure constant widths in tables.
oldplot- Draw plots with the older Spice3 plotting code instead of the Qt plot windows. The older code draws Smith charts, which the Qt plot windows can't yet.
plottype- This should be one of normal, comb, or point:chars. normal, the default, causes points to be plotted as parts of connected lines. comb causes a comb plot to be done (see the description of the combplot variable above). point causes each point to be plotted separately - the chars are a list of characters that are used for each vector plotted. If they are omitted then a default set is used.
polydegree- The degree of the polynomial that the plot command should fit to the data. If polydegree is N, then Spice3f5 fits a degree N polynomial to every set of N points and draws 10 intermediate points in between each endpoint. If the points aren't monotonic, then it tries rotating the curve and reducing the degree until a fit is achieved.
polysteps- The number of points to interpolate between every pair of points available when doing curve fitting. The default is 10.
program- The name of the current program (argv[0]).
prompt- The prompt, with the character `!' replaced by the current event number.
rawfile- The default name for rawfiles created.
remote_shell- Overrides the name used for generating rspice runs (default is "rsh").
rhost- The machine to use for remote SPICE-3 runs, instead of the default one (see the description of the rspice command).
rprogram- The name of the remote program to use in the rspice command.
slowplot- Stop between each graph plotted and wait for the user to type return before continuing.
sourcepath- A list of the directories to search when a source command is given. The default is the current directory and the standard spice library directory, set when Spice3f5 is built.
spicepath- The program to use for the aspice command. The default is set when Spice3f5 is built.
units- If this is degrees, then all the trig functions will use degrees instead of radians.
unixcom- If a command isn't defined, try to execute it as an operating system command. Setting this option has the effect of giving a rehash command.
verbose- Be verbose. This is midway between echo and debug / cpdebug.
width- The width of the page for asciiplot and print col.
xbrushwidth- The line width used by the xgraph command.
These variables affect how circuits are read:
editor- The editor to use for the edit command.
modelcard- The name of the model card (normally .model).
noaskquit- Do not check to make sure that there are no circuits suspended and no plots unsaved. Normally Spice3f5 warns the user when they try to quit if this is the case.
nobjthack- Assume that BJTs have 4 nodes.
noparse- Don't attempt to parse input files when they are read in (useful for debugging). Of course, they cannot be run if they are not parsed.
nosubckt- Don't expand subcircuits.
renumber- Renumber input lines when an input file has .include's.
subend- The card to end subcircuits (normally .ends).
subinvoke- The prefix to invoke subcircuits (normally x).
substart- The card to begin subcircuits (normally .subckt).