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ngnutmeg man-page

NUTMEG(1)							     NUTMEG(1)



NAME
       nutmeg - spice post-processor

SYNOPSIS
       nutmeg [ - ] [ -n ] [ -t term ] [ datafile ... ]

DESCRIPTION
       Nutmeg  is  a  post  processor for SPICE - it takes the raw output file
       created by spice -r and plots the data on  a  graphics  terminal	 or  a
       workstation  display.   Note that the raw output file is different from
       the data that SPICE writes to the standard output.

       Arguments are:

       -      Don’t try to load the default data file ("rawspice") if no other
	      files are given.

       -n (or --no-spiceinit)
	      Don’t try to source the file ".spiceinit" upon startup. Normally
	      nutmeg tries to find the file in the current directory,  and  if
	      it is not found then in the user’s home directory.

       -t term (or --term=term)
	      The program is being run on a terminal with mfb name term.

       -h (or --help)
	      Display  a  verbose  help on the arguments available to the pro-
	      gram.

       -v (or --version)
	      Display a version number and copyright information of  the  pro-
	      gram.

       Further	arguments are taken to be data files in binary or ascii format
       (see sconvert(1)) which are loaded into	nutmeg.	 If  the  file	is  in
       binary format, it may be only partially completed (useful for examining
       SPICE ouput before the simulation is finished). One  file  may  contain
       any number of data sets from different analyses.

       Nutmeg  data is in the form of vectors: time, voltage, etc. Each vector
       has a type, and vectors can be operated on and combined algebraicly  in
       ways  consistent	 with their types. Vectors are normally created when a
       data file is read in (see the load command below), and when the initial
       datafile is loaded. They can also be created with the let command.

       An  expression is an algebraic formula involving vectors and scalars (a
       scalar is a vector of length 1), and the following operations:

	      +, -, *, %, /, ^, and ,.

       % is the modulo operator, and the comma operator has two	 meanings:  if
       it  is  present	in  the argument list of a user-definable function, it
       serves to seperate the arguments. Otherwise, the term x , y is  synony-
       mous with x + j(y).

       Also available are the logical operations & (and), | (or), ! (not), and
       the relational operations <, >, >=, <=, =, and <> (not equal).  If used
       in  an  algebraic  expression they work like they would in C, producing
       values of 0 or 1.  The relational operators  have  the  following  syn-
       onyms:  "gt"  is >, "lt" is <, "ge" is >=, "le" is <=, "ne" is <>, "eq"
       is =, "and" is &, "or" is |, and "not" is !.  These are useful  when  <
       and > might be confused with IO redirection (which is almost always).

       The following functions are available:

	      mag(vector) - The magnitude of vector.

	      ph(vector) - The phase of vector.

	      j(vector) - i (sqrt(-1)) times vector.

	      real(vector) - The real component of vector.

	      imag(vector) - The imaginary part of vector.

	      db(vector) - 20 * log10(mag(vector)).

	      log(vector) - The logarithm (base 10) of the vector.

	      ln(vector) - The natural logarithm (base e) of vector.

	      exp(vector) - e to the vector power.

	      abs(vector) - The absolute value of vector.

	      sqrt(vector) - The square root of vector.

	      sin(vector) - The sin of vector.

	      cos(vector) - The cosine of vector.

	      tan(vector) - The tangent of vector.

	      atan(vector) - The inverse tangent of vector.

	      norm(vector) - The vector normalized to 1 (i.e, the largest mag-
	      nitude of any component will be 1).

	      rnd(vector) - A vector with  each	 component  a  random  integer
	      between  0 and the absolute value of the vectors’s corresponding
	      component.

	      mean(vector) - The result is a scalar (a length 1	 vector)  that
	      is the mean of the elements of vector.

	      vector(number)  -	 The result is a vector of length number, with
	      elements 0, 1, ...  number - 1. If number is a vector then  just
	      the  first element is taken, and if it isn’t an integer then the
	      floor of the magnitude is used.

	      length(vector) - The length of vector.

	      interpolate(plot.vector) - The result of interpolating the named
	      vector  onto  the scale of the current plot.  This function uses
	      the variable polydegree to determine the	degree	of  interpola-
	      tion.

       A  vector  may be either the name of a vector already defined, a float-
       ing- point number (a scalar), or a list	like  [elt1  elt2  ...	eltn],
       which  is  a vector of length n.	 A number may be written in any format
       acceptable to SPICE, such as 14.6MEG or -1.231E-4. Note	that  you  can
       either  use scientific notation or one of the abbreviations like MEG or
       G, but not both.	 As with SPICE, a number may have trailing  alphabetic
       characters after it.

       The  notation  expr  [lower  upper], where lower and upper are numbers,
       denotes the range of elements from expr between lower and  upper.   The
       notation	 expr  [num]  denotes the num’th element of expr.  If upper is
       lower than lower, the order of the elements in the vector is  reversed.
       In  all	other  cases,  [  and  ]  serve to surround literal vectors as
       described above.	 (You may have to use a lot  of	 parentheses  to  make
       sure  that you get what you want.  For instance, you have to type print
       (foo) ([1 2]) to print the two vectors.	Otherwise it  will  be	inter-
       preted  as  a  function call or a vector with an index.)	 Note that the
       expression foo[10 20][5] will not yield the 15th element	 of  foo,  but
       rather the 5th.	In general only the last index suffix on an expression
       will take effect.

       To reference vectors in a plot that is not the current  plot  (see  the
       setplot command, below), the notation plotname.vecname can be used.

       Either  a  plotname  or	a vector name may be the wildcard all.	If the
       plotname is all, matching vectors from all plots are specified, and  if
       the  vector  name is all, all vectors in the specified plots are refer-
       enced.  Note that you may not  use  binary  operations  on  expressions
       involving  wildcards  - it is not obvious what all + all should denote,
       for instance.

       Thus some (contrived) examples of expressions are:

	      cos(TIME) + db(v(3))

	      sin(cos(log([1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10])))

	      TIME * rnd(v(9)) - 15 * cos(vin#branch) ^ [7.9e5 8]

	      not ((ac3.FREQ[32] & tran1.TIME[10]) gt 3)

       Nutmeg commands are as follows:

       plot exprs [ylimit ylo yhi] [xlimit xlo xhi] [xindices xilo xihi]
	      [xcompress comp] [xdelta xdel] [ydelta ydel] [xlog] [ylog] [vs xname]
		      [xlabel word] [ylabel word] [title word] [samep]
	      Plot the given exprs on the screen (if you  are  on  a  graphics
	      terminal).  The  xlimit  and ylimit arguments determine the high
	      and low x- and y-limits of the axes, respectively. The  xindices
	      arguments	 determine  what  range	 of points are to be plotted -
	      everything between the xilo’th point and the  xihi’th  point  is
	      plotted.	 The xcompress argument specifies that only one out of
	      every comp points should be plotted. If an xdelta	 or  a	ydelta
	      parameter	 is  present,  it  specifies  the spacing between grid
	      lines on the X- and Y-axis.  These parameter names may be abbre-
	      viated to xl, yl, xind, xcomp, xdel, and ydel respectively.  The
	      xname argument is an expression to use as the scale  on  the  x-
	      axis.   If  xlog	or  ylog are present, the X or Y scale respec-
	      tively will be logarithmic.  The	xlabel	and  ylabel  arguments
	      cause  the  specified  labels  to	 be used for the X and Y axes,
	      respectively.  If samep is given, the values of the other param-
	      eters  (other  than  xname) from the previous plot, hardcopy, or
	      asciiplot command will be used unless re-defined on the  command
	      line.   Finally, the title argument will be used in the place of
	      the plot name at the bottom of the graph.

       hardcopy file plotargs
	      Just like plot, except creates a file called file containing the
	      plot.   The  file	 is  an	 image	in  plot(5) format, and can be
	      printed by either the plot(1) program or lpr with the -g flag.

       asciiplot plotargs
	      Produce a line printer plot of the vectors.  The plot is sent to
	      the  standard  output,  so you can put it into a file with asci-
	      iplot args ... > file.   The  set	 options  width,  height,  and
	      nobreak  determine the width and height of the plot, and whether
	      there are page breaks, respectively. Note	 that  you  will  have
	      problems	if you try to asciiplot something with an X-scale that
	      isn’t monotonic (i.e, something like sin(TIME) ), because	 asci-
	      iplot uses a simple-minded sort of linear interpolation.

       define function(arg1, arg2, ...) expression
	      Define  the  user-definable  function with the name function and
	      arguments arg1, arg2, ... to be expression,  which  may  involve
	      the arguments. When the function is later used, the arguments it
	      is given are substituted for the formal  arguments  when	it  is
	      parsed.	If expression is not present, any definition for func-
	      tion is printed, and if there are no arguments  to  define  then
	      all  currently active definitions are printed. Note that you may
	      have different functions defined with the same name but  differ-
	      ent arities.  Some useful definitions are:

	      define max(x,y) (x > y) * x + (x <= y) * y
	      define min(x,y) (x < y) * x + (x >= y) * y

       undefine function ...
	      Definitions for the named user-defined functions are deleted.

       let name = expr
	      Creates  a  new  vector  called name with the value specified by
	      expr, an expression as described above. If expr is []  (a	 zero-
	      length  vector) then the vector becomes undefined.  If there are
	      no arguments, let is the same as display.

       print [col] [line] expr ...
	      Prints the vector described by the expression expr.  If the  col
	      argument	is  present,  print the vectors named side by side. If
	      line is given, the vectors are printed horizontally.  col is the
	      default,	unless	all the vectors named have a length of one, in
	      which case line is the default.  The options width, length,  and
	      nobreak  are  effective for this command (see asciiplot). If the
	      expression is all, all of the  vectors  available	 are  printed.
	      Thus  print  col all > file will print everything in the file in
	      SPICE2 format.  The scale vector (time, frequency)  will	always
	      be in the first column unless the variable noprintscale is true.

       load [filename] ...
	      Loads the raw data in either binary or  ascii  format  from  the
	      files  named.  The default filename is rawspice, or the argument
	      to the -r flag if there was one.

       source filename
	      Reads commands from the file filename.  Lines beginning with the
	      character * are considered comments and ignored.

       help [all] [command ...]
	      Prints  help.  If the argument all is given, a short description
	      of everything you could possibly type is printed.	  If  commands
	      are  given,  descriptions of those commands are printed.	Other-
	      wise help for only a few major commands is printed.

       display [varname ...]
	      Prints a summary of currently defined vectors, or of  the	 names
	      specified.   The	vectors are sorted by name unless the variable
	      nosort is set.  The information given is the name of the vector,
	      the  length,  the	 type of the vector, and whether it is real or
	      complex data. Additionally, one vector will be labeled  [scale].
	      When a command such as plot is given without a vs argument, this
	      scale is used for the X-axis. It is always the first vector in a
	      rawfile, or the first vector defined in a new plot. If you unde-
	      fine the scale (i.e, let TIME = []), a random  remaining	vector
	      will become the scale.

       setplot [plotname]
	      Set  the	current plot to the plot with the given name, or if no
	      name is given, prompt the user with  a  menu.   (Note  that  the
	      plots  are  named	 as  they are loaded, with names like tran1 or
	      op2. These names are shown by the setplot and  display  commands
	      and  are	used  by  diff,	 below.)   If  the  "New plot" item is
	      selected, the current plot  will	become	one  with  no  vectors
	      defined.	 Note  that  here the word "plot" refers to a group of
	      vectors that are the result of one SPICE run.   When  more  than
	      one  file	 is loaded in, or more than one plot is present in one
	      file, nutmeg keeps them seperate and only shows you the  vectors
	      in the current plot.

       settype type vector ...
	      Change the type of the named vectors to type.  Type names can be
	      found in the manual page for sconvert.

       diff plot1 plot2 [vec ...]
	      Compare all the vectors in the  specified	 plots,	 or  only  the
	      named  vectors  if any are given. There are different vectors in
	      the two plots, or any values in the vectors differ significantly
	      the  difference  is  reported. The variables abstol, reltol, and
	      vntol are used to determine what "significantly" means (see  the
	      SPICE3 User’s Manual).

       quit   Quit nutmeg.

       bug    Send  a  bug report. (If you have defined BUGADDR, the mail will
	      go there.)

       write [file] [exprs]
	      Writes out the  expr’s  to  file.	  First	 vectors  are  grouped
	      together	by  plots,  and	 written  out  as  such.  (I.e, if the
	      expression list contained three vectors from one	plot  and  two
	      from  another,  then  two	 plots will be written, one with three
	      vectors and one with two.)  Additionally, if  the	 scale	for  a
	      vector  isn’t  present, it is automatically written out as well.
	      The default format is ascii, but this can be  changed  with  the
	      set  filetype command.  The default filename is rawspice, or the
	      argument to the -r flag on the command line, if there  was  one,
	      and the default expression list is all.

       shell [args ...]
	      Fork  a  shell,  or  execute  the	 arguments as a command to the
	      shell.

       alias [word] [text ...]
	      Causes word to be aliased to text.  History substitutions may be
	      used, as in C-shell aliases.

       unalias [word ...]
	      Removes any aliases present for the words.

       history [number]
	      Print  out the history, or the last number commands typed at the
	      keyboard.	 Note: in   version  3a7  and  earlier,	 all  commands
	      (including ones read from files) were saved.

       set [word] [word = value] ...
	      Set  the	value  of word to be value, if it is present.  You can
	      set any word to be any value, numeric or string.	If no value is
	      given  then the value is the boolean ’true’.   The value of word
	      may be inserted into a command by writing $word.	If a  variable
	      is  set  to  a  list  of values that are enclosed in parentheses
	      (which must be seperated from their values by white space),  the
	      value  of the variable is the list.  The variables meaningful to
	      nutmeg (of which there are too many) are:

		       abstol
		       The absolute tolerance used by the diff command.

		       appendwrite
		       Append to the file when a write command is  issued,  if
		       one already exists.

		       colorN
		       These  variables	 determine  the	 colors	 used, if X is
		       being run on a color display.  N may be between	0  and
		       15.  Color 0 is the background, color 1 is the grid and
		       text color, and colors 2 through 15 are used  in	 order
		       for  vectors plotted.  The value of the color variables
		       should be names of colors, which may be	found  in  the
		       file /usr/lib/rgb.txt.

		       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  complied
		       with the -DCPDEBUG flag.)

		       debug
		       If  set then a lot of debugging information is printed.
		       (Must be compiled with the -DFTEDEBUG flag.)

		       device
		       The name (/dev/tty??) of the graphics device.  If  this
		       variable isn’t set then the user’s terminal is used. To
		       do plotting on another monitor you will	probably  have
		       to  set both the device and term variables.  (If device
		       is set to the name of a	file,  nutmeg  will  dump  the
		       graphics control codes into this file -- this is useful
		       for saving plots.)

		       echo
		       Print out each command before it is executed.

		       filetype
		       This can be either ascii or binary, and determines what
		       the format of rawfiles will be. 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 will
		       be  used	 as the number of equally spaced points to use
		       for the Y-axis when plotting.   Otherwise  the  current
		       scale  will  be used (which may not have equally spaced
		       points).	 If the current	 scale	isn’t  strictly	 mono-
		       tonic, then this option will have 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.

		       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  distri-
		       bution  currently  recognizes postscript as an alterna-
		       tive output format.   When  used	 in  conjunction  with
		       hcopydev,  hcopydevtype	should	specify	 a format sup-
		       ported 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.

		       nfreqs
		       The number of frequencies to  compute  in  the  fourier
		       command. (Defaults to 10.)

		       nobreak
		       Don’t have asciiplot and print col break between pages.

		       noasciiplotvalue
		       Don’t print the first vector plotted to the  left  when
		       doing an asciiplot.

		       noclobber
		       Don’t  overwrite	 existing files when doing IO redirec-
		       tion.

		       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 to the screen (e.g, the print or
		       asciiplot commands), the output will be	stopped	 every
		       screenful  and  will continue when a carriage return is
		       typed. If nomoremode is set then data will  scroll  off
		       the screen without hesitation.

		       nonomatch
		       If  noglob  is  unset and a global expression cannot be
		       matched, use the global characters literally instead of
		       complaining.

		       nosort
		       Don’t have display sort the variable names.

		       noprintscale
		       Don’t  print  the  scale	 in the leftmost column when a
		       print col command is given.

		       numdgt
		       The number of digits to print when printing  tables  of
		       data  (fourier, print col).  The default precision is 6
		       digits.	On the VAX, approximately  16  decimal	digits
		       are  available using double precision, so numdgt should
		       not be more than 16.  If the number  is	negative,  one
		       fewer  digit  is	 printed  to ensure constant widths in
		       tables.

		       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	seper-
		       ately - the chars are a list of characters that will be
		       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 nutmeg
		       will fit a degree N polynomial to every set of N points
		       and draw 10 intermediate points in  between  each  end-
		       point. If the points aren’t monotonic, then it will try
		       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.	 (This should really be done automati-
		       cally.)

		       program
		       The name of the current program (argv[0]).

		       prompt
		       The prompt, with the character ‘!’ replaced by the cur-
		       rent event number.

		       rawfile
		       The default name for rawfiles created.

		       reltol
		       The relative tolerance used by the diff command.

		       rhost
		       The  machine to use for remote SPICE-3 runs, instead of
		       the default one. (See the  description  of  the	rspice
		       command, below.)

		       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 com-
		       mand is given.  The default is  the  current  directory
		       and  the	 standard spice library (/usr/local/lib/spice,
		       or whatever LIBPATH is #defined to in the  source.

		       spicepath
		       The program to use for the aspice command. The  default
		       is /cad/bin/spice.

		       term
		       The mfb name of the current terminal.

		       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 a UNIX
		       command.	  Setting this option has the effect of giving
		       a rehash command, below.	 This is useful for people who
		       want to use nutmeg as a login shell.

		       verbose
		       Be  verbose.  This  is  midway between echo and debug /
		       cpdebug.

		       vntol
		       The absolute voltage tolerance used by  the  diff  com-
		       mand.

		       width
		       The width of the page for asciiplot and print col.

		       xbrushheight
		       The height of the brush to use if X is being run.

		       xbrushwidth
		       The width of the brush to use if X is being run.

		       xfont
		       The  name  of  the X font to use when plotting data and
		       entering labels.	 The plot may not look entirely	 great
		       if this is a variable-width font.


       unset [word] ...
	      Unset the variables word.

       shift [varname] [number]
	      If  varname is the name of a list variable, it is shifted to the
	      left by number elements. (I.e, the number leftmost elements  are
	      removed.)	  The  default varname is argv, and the default number
	      is 1.

       rusage [resource ...]
	      Print resource usage statistics.	If any	resources  are	given,
	      just   print  the	 usage	of  that  resource.   Currently	 valid
	      resources are:

		       elapsed
		       The amount of time elapsed since the last rusage elaped
		       call.

		       faults
		       Number  of page faults and context switches (BSD only).

		       space
		       Data space used.

		       time
		       CPU time used so far.

		       everything
		       All of the above.

       cd [directory]  Change the current working directory to	directory,  or
		       to the user’s home directory if none is given.

       aspice [output-file]
		       Start  a	 SPICE-3 run, and when it is finished load the
		       data. The raw data is kept in a temporary file. If out-
		       put-file	 is  specified	then  the diagnostic output is
		       directed into that file, otherwise it is thrown away.

       jobs	       Report on the asynchronous SPICE-3 jobs currently  run-
		       ning.   Nutmeg  checks  to see if the jobs are finished
		       every time you execute a command.  If it is  done  then
		       the data is loaded and becomes available.

       rspice [input file]
		       Runs  a	SPICE-3	 remotely  taking  the input file as a
		       SPICE-3 input deck, or the current circuit if no	 argu-
		       ment  is	 given.	 Nutmeg waits for the job to complete,
		       and passes output from the remote  job  to  the	user’s
		       standard	 output.  When the job is finished the data is
		       loaded in as with aspice. If the variable rhost is set,
		       nutmeg will connect to this host instead of the default
		       remote SPICE-3 server machine. Note that	 this  command
		       will  only work if your system administrator is running
		       a SPICE-3 daemon on the remote host.  If	 the  variable
		       rprogram is set, then rspice will use this as the path-
		       name to the program to run.

       echo [stuff...] Echos the arguments.

       fourier fundamental_frequency [value ...]
		       Does a fourier analysis of each of  the	given  values,
		       using  the  first  10 multiples of the fundamental fre-
		       quency (or the first nfreqs, if that variable is set  -
		       see below). The output is like that of the .four	 card.
		       The values may be any valid expression.	The values are
		       interpolated onto a fixed-space grid with the number of
		       points given by the fourgridsize variable, or 200 if it
		       is  not set.  The interpolation will be of degree poly-
		       degree if that variable is set, or 1.  If polydegree is
		       0,  then no interpolation will be done.	This is likely
		       to give erroneous results if  the  time	scale  is  not
		       monotonic, though.

       version [version id]
		       Print  out  the	version of nutmeg that is running.  If
		       there are arguments, it checks to make  sure  that  the
		       arguments  match the current version of SPICE. (This is
		       mainly used as a Command: line in rawfiles.)

       rehash	       Recalculate the internal hash tables used when  looking
		       up  UNIX	 commands,  and	 make all UNIX commands in the
		       user’s PATH available for command completion.  This  is
		       useless	unless you have set unixcom first (see above).

       The following control structures are available:

	      while condition
		   statement
		   ...
	      end

       While condition, an arbitrary algebraic expression,  is	true,  execute
       the statements.

	      repeat [number]
		   statement
		   ...
	      end

       Execute	the  statements	 number	 times,	 or  forever if no argument is
       given.

	      dowhile condition
		   statement
		   ...
	      end

       The same as while, except  that	the  condition	is  tested  after  the
       statements are executed.

	      foreach var value ...
		   statement
		   ...
	      end

       The statements are executed once for each of the values, each time with
       the variable var set to the current one.	 (var can be accessed  by  the
       $var notation - see below).

	      if condition
		   statement
		   ...
	      else
		   statement
		   ...
	      end

       If  the condition is non-zero then the first set of statements are exe-
       cuted, otherwise the second set.	 The else and the second set of state-
       ments may be omitted.

	      label word

       If  a statement of the form goto word is encountered, control is trans-
       fered to this point, otherwise this is a no-op.

	      goto word

       If a statement of the form label word is present in  the	 block	or  an
       enclosing  block,  control is transfered there.	Note that if the label
       is at the top level, it must be before the goto statement (i.e, a  for-
       ward goto may occur only within a block).

	      continue

       If  there  is  a while, dowhile, or foreach block enclosing this state-
       ment, control passes to the test, or in the case of foreach,  the  next
       value is taken.	Otherwise an error results.

	      break

       If  there  is  a while, dowhile, or foreach block enclosing this state-
       ment, control passes out of the block. Otherwise an error results.

       Of course, control structures may be nested.  When a block  is  entered
       and  the	 input	is  the	 terminal,  the prompt becomes a number of >’s
       equalling the number of blocks the user has entered. The	 current  con-
       trol structures may be examined with the debugging command cdump.

       If  a word is typed as a command, and there is no built-in command with
       that name, the directories in the sourcepath list are searched in order
       for  the	 file.	If it is found, it is read in as a command file (as if
       it were sourced).  Before it is read, however, the variables  argc  and
       argv  are set to the number of words following the filename on the com-
       mand line, and a list of those words respectively.  After the  file  is
       finished, these variables are unset.  Note that if a command file calls
       another, it must save its argv and argc since they  will	 get  altered.
       Also,  command  files  may  not	be re-entrant since there are no local
       variables.  (Of course, the  procedures	may  explicitly	 manipulate  a
       stack...)   This	 way  one can write scripts analogous to shell scripts
       for nutmeg and .	 Note that for the script to work with , it must begin
       with  a blank line (or whatever you like, since it will be thrown away)
       and then a line with .control on it.  This is an unfortunate result  of
       the  source  command being used for both circuit input and command file
       execution.  Note also that this allows the user to merely type the name
       of a circuit file as a command, and it will be automatically run.

       There	  are	  various     command	  scripts     installed	    in
       /usr/local/lib/spice/scripts (or whatever the path is on your machine),
       and  the	 default  sourcepath  includes	this directory, so you can use
       these command files (almost) like builtin commands.

       Nutmeg will use either X or MFB, depending  on  whether	it  finds  the
       variable	 DISPLAY in the environment.  If you are using X on a worksta-
       tion, it should already be present, but if you want to display graphics
       on  a different machine than the one you are running nutmeg on, DISPLAY
       should be of the form machine:0.

       If X is being used, the cursor may be positioned at any	point  on  the
       screen  when the window is up and characters typed at the keyboard will
       be added to the window at that point.  The window may then be sent to a
       printer using the xpr(1) program.

       There are a number of pre-defined constants in nutmeg. They are:
	    pi	      pi
	    e	      The base of natural logarithms
	    c	      The speed of light
	    i	      The square root of -1
	    kelvin	   Absolute 0 in Centigrade
	    echarge	   The charge on an electron
	    boltz	   Boltzman’s constant
	    planck	   Planck’s constant (h)


       These  are  all	in MKS units. If you have another variable with a name
       that conflicts with one of these then it takes precedence.

       Nutmeg occasionally checks to see if it is getting close to running out
       of  space, and warns the user if this is the case. (This is more likely
       to be useful with the SPICE front end.)

       C-shell type quoting with "" and ’’, and backquote substitution may  be
       used.  Within single quotes, no further substitution (like history sub-
       stitution) is done, and	within	double	quotes,	 the  words  are  kept
       together	 but further substitution is done. Any text between backquotes
       is replaced by the result of executing the text as  a  command  to  the
       shell.

       Tenex-style  (’set  filec’  in  the 4.3 C-shell) command, filename, and
       keyword completion is possible: If EOF (control-D) is typed  after  the
       first  character	 on the line, a list of the commands or possible argu-
       ments is printed. (If it is alone on the line it will exit nutmeg.)  If
       escape  is  typed,  then	 nutmeg will try to complete what the user has
       already typed.  To get a list of all commands,  the  user  should  type
       <space> ^D.

       The  values  of	variables  may be used in commands by writing $varname
       where the value of the variable is to appear.  The special variables $$
       and $< refer to the process ID of the program and a line of input which
       is read from the terminal when the variable is evaluated, respectively.
       If  a variable has a name of the form $&word, then word is considered a
       vector (see above), and its value is taken to be the value of the vari-
       able.   If  $foo	 is  a	valid  variable, and is of type list, then the
       expression $foo[low-high] represents a range of elements.   Either  the
       upper index or the lower may be left out, and the reverse of a list may
       be obtained with $foo[len-0].  Also, the notation $?foo evaluates to  1
       if the variable foo is defined, 0 otherwise, and $#foo evaluates to the
       number of elements in foo if it is a list, 1  if	 it  is	 a  number  or
       string, and 0 if it is a boolean variable.

       History	substitutions,	similar	 to C-shell history substitutions, are
       also available - see the C-shell manual page for all of the details.

       The characters ~, {, and } have the same effects as they do in  the  C-
       Shell,  i.e.,  home directory and alternative expansion. It is possible
       to use the wildcard characters *, ?, [, and ] also,  but	 only  if  you
       unset noglob first. This makes them rather useless for typing algebraic
       expressions, so you should set noglob again after  you  are  done  with
       wildcard expansion. Note that the pattern [^abc] will match all charac-
       ters except a, b, and c.

       IO redirection is available - the symbols >, >>, >&, >>&,  and  <  have
       the same effects as in the C-shell.

       You may type multiple commands on one line, seperated by semicolons.

       If  you	want  to use a different mfbcap file than the default (usually
       ~cad/lib/mfbcap), you have  to  set  the	 environment  variable	MFBCAP
       before  you  start  nutmeg.   The  -m option and the mfbcap variable no
       longer work.

VMS NOTES
       Nutmeg can be run under VAX/VMS. Some features like command,  etc  com-
       pletion,	 expansion  of *, ?, and [], backquote substitution, the shell
       command, and so forth do not work. (In  fact  command  completion  only
       works on 4.2 or 4.3 BSD.)

       Nutmeg will look for start-up commands in the file spice.rc in the cur-
       rent directory.

       The standard suffix for rawspice files in VMS is ".raw".

       You will have to respond to the -more- prompt during plot with  a  car-
       riage return instead of any key as you can do on UNIX.

SEE ALSO
       sconvert(1), spice(1), mfb(3), writedata(3)

AUTHOR
       Wayne Christopher (faustus@cad.berkeley.edu)

BUGS
       The label entry facilities are very primitive - after all, nutmeg isn’t
       a graphics editor (yet).	 You must be careful to type very slowly  when
       entering	 labels	 -- nutmeg checks the X event queue once every second,
       and can get very confused if characters arrive faster than that.

       If you redefine colors after creating a plot window with	 X,  and  then
       cause the window to be redrawn, it will not to the right thing.

       When defining aliases like

	      alias pdb plot db( ’!:1’ - ’!:2’ )

       you  must  be  careful to quote the argument list substitutions in this
       manner. If you quote the whole argument it might not work properly.

       In a user-defined function, the arguments cannot be part of a name that
       uses the plot.vec syntax.  I.e,

	      define poke(duck) cos(tran1.duck)

       won’t do the right thing.

       If you type plot all all, or otherwise use a wildcard reference for one
       plot twice in a command, bad things will happen.

       The asciiplot command doesn’t deal with log scales or  the  delta  key-
       words.

       There are probably some features that nutmeg doesn’t have yet.

CAVEATS
       Often the names of terminals recognised by MFB are different from those
       in /etc/termcap. Thus you may have to reset your terminal type with the
       command

	      set term = termname

       where termname is the name in the mfbcap file.

       The  hardcopy  command  is useless on VMS and other systems without the
       plot command, unless the user has a program  that  understands  plot(5)
       format.




4th Berkeley Distribution	 27 April 1987			     NUTMEG(1)
geda/ngnutmeg_mp.txt · Last modified: 2012/02/20 15:14 (external edit)