Dear @Stefan Schippers, hope you are doing fine. We have been simulating in xschem using symbols with relative paths. The problem arises when we use a symbol that references another one, both with relative paths. We have a folder that contains two schematics with symbols, where symbol1 references symbol2 with a relative path. The folder follows the next structure

symbols/
      - symbol1.sym  (e.g.: SR_latch)
      - symbol1.sch
      - symbol2.sym  (e.g.: nor)
      - symbol2.sch
testbenches/
      testbench_a/
                 - testbench1.sch

testbench1.sch

declares symbol1 with the following path:

../../symbols/symbol1.sym

. This way, when I press the

netlist

button, xschem tries to generate the netlist but fails because schematic references symbol1 with path

../../symbols/symbol1.sym

, but symbol2 expands just as

symbol2.sym

, ignoring the relative path within symbol1. Is ignoring relative declarations between schematics an expected behaviour? As a solution, we thought in declaring the path to the symbols inside the schematic. Is there a way to append to XSCHEM_SEARCH_PATH inside a schematic? Or is it strictly necessary to have a specific xschemrc file? If creating a new xschemrc file is necessary, it should reference gf180mcuD specific xschemrc file. Is there a way of referencing a xschemrc file inside other xschemrc file? Hope you can help us with this situation. Best regards, Vicente Osorio Rivas

You must declare the XSCHEM_LIBRARY_PATH in xschemrc as:

#### pdk install root

set PDK_ROOT /path/to/share/pdk

#### process variant

set PDK gf180mcuD

#### location of spice models/libs

set 180MCU_MODELS ${PDK_ROOT}/$PDK/libs.tech/ngspice

#### location of gf180mcu stdcells

set 180MCU_STDCELLS  ${PDK_ROOT}/$PDK/libs.ref/gf180mcu_fd_sc_mcu7t5v0/spice

#### reset any previous search path definition

set XSCHEM_LIBRARY_PATH {}

#### xschem base symbols, like labels, pins, ideal devices

append XSCHEM_LIBRARY_PATH :${XSCHEM_SHAREDIR}/xschem_library

#### gf180mcu silicon devices

append XSCHEM_LIBRARY_PATH :$PDK_ROOT/$PDK/libs.tech/xschem

#### your design

append XSCHEM_LIBRARY_PATH /path/to/design

where

/path/to/design

is the directory immediately above symbols and testbenches Then load the testbench and if some symbols are missing replace them then do a force save (ctrl-Shift-S). Descend into the sub blocks and do a force save as well. This way xschem removes the ../.. in symbol references, since this kind of referencing is dangerous. For references about library management read this manual page.

Hi @Stefan Schippers, would be possible to define a xschemrc that makes an "include" or a "source" of another one?

@aquiles viza yes you can by doing

source /path/to/other/xschemrc

Thanks @Stefan Schippers, it worked as expected.