gnetlist is the netlist extraction/generation program which is part gEDA (GPL Electronic Design Automation) toolset. This program takes a schematic for its input and outputs a netlist.

gnetlist depends heavily on guile (a scheme based scripting language). It uses guile to define the output format. Basically gnetlist reads a schematic, creates an internal representation of the various connections, and then a guile script extracts the connections into some netlist format.

gnetlist is very much so a work in progress. Currently it supports the following backends:

1) Allegro netlist format (-g allegro)

2) BAE netlist format (-g bae)

3) BOM / BOM2 - Bill of Materials (-g bom and -g bom2)

4) Partslist 1,2,3 - More Bill of Materials (-g partslist[1-3])

5) DRC - Start of a design rule checker (-g drc)

6) DRC2 - A second design rule checker (-g drc2)

7) gEDA - native format, mainly used for testing (-g geda)

8) Gossip netlist format (-g gossip)

9) PADS netlist format (-g pads)

10) PCB / PCBboard (-g PCB and -g PCBboard)

11) gsch2pcb backend (-g gsch2pcb)

12) ProtelII netlist format (-g protelII)

13) Spice compatible netlist format (-g spice)

14) Enhanced spice compatible netlist format (-g spice-sdb)

15) Switcap netlist format (-g switcap)

16) Tango netlist format (-g tango)

17) Verilog code (-g verilog)

18) VHDL code (-g vhdl)

19) VIPEC netlist format (-g vipec)

20) Bartels Autoengineer netlist format (-g bae)

21) GOSSIP system simulation system netlist format (-g gossip)

22) MAXASCII netlist format (-g maxascii)

23) VHDL-AMS netlist format (-g vams)

24) Futurenet2 netlist format (-g futurenet2 )

25) SWITCAP switched capacitor simulator netlist format (-g switcap )

26) RF Cascade netlist format (-g cascade )

27) RACAL-REDAC netlist format (-g redac )

28) PCB actions file for forward annotating pin/pad names from schematic to layout (-g pcbpins)

For more info on these formats please look at the README.*

Please read the official (non-existant) documentation on how to use gnetlist, since this man page just describes the command line arguments and a few examples on how to run gnetlist.

-q

Quiet mode on. This mode turns off all warnings/notes/messages. (optional)

-v

Verbose mode on. This mode gives as much feedback to the user as possible. (optional)

-g guile_procedure

Specify the guile procedure which is executed to create the netlist.

-o output_filename

Specify the filename which will contain the netlist generated by gnetlist. If this option is not specified the default filename is "output.net".

-l scheme_file

Specify a filename which contains scheme code to be loaded and execute before any backend is loaded or any guile procedure (using -g flag) is executed. This flag can be specified multiple times and can be used to pass information to backends.

-m scheme_file

Specify a filename which contains scheme code to be loaded and execute after the backend is loaded but still before any guile procedure (using -g flag) is executed. This flag can be specified multiple times and can be used to pass information to backends. This flag, for example, allows the user to override variables inside of the backends (such as paths).

-c string

Pass the specified string to the guile interpreter. This allows you to execute arbitrary guile scripts from the command line. Be sure to surround the string with either single or double quotes to satisfy your shell. The string is execute before any init or netlist backend scheme code is loaded or executed.

-I

Put .INCLUDE <filename> in output file instead of model file's contents.

-i

Interactive mode. After the schematic is read in and parsed then go into interactive mode. Interactive mode allows the user to execute guile procedures directly.

-s

Sort output netlist (for Gnucap)

schematic1 [... schematicN]

At least one schematic file must be specified. If multiple schematics are specified then they are sequentially read in and parsed with the assumption that they are all part of the same design. It is important that the schematic(s) follow all the options (ie last).

gnetlist requires that at least one schematic to be specified on the command line:

        ./gnetlist stack_1.sch

This is not very useful since it does not direct gnetlist to do
anything.

Specify a guile procedure name to get gnetlist to output a netlist:

        ./gnetlist -g geda stack_1.sch

The netlist output will be written to a file called "output.net"
in the current working directory.

You can specify the output filename by using the -o flag:

        ./gnetlist -g geda stack_1.sch -o stack.netlist

The spice backend is run against the schematic(s) if you specify
-g spice and the tango backend is run if you specify -g tango.

To interact with the guile interpreter:

        ./gnetlist -i stack_1.sch

You will get a prompt where you can execute guile procedures.

To get a more verbose feedback as to what gnetlist is doing run
with the -v flag:

        ./gnetlist -v -g geda stack_1.sch

This document can be freely redistributed according to the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2.0