COMplete DESign CATalog Aborted Problem in Librarian and other Librarian Problems

June 3, 2002

Every so often, we still have problems with completing the design catalog in Librarian. The environment variable MGC_DATAPREP_DDMS is set to ON, as it ALWAYS should be, but for some reason, completing the catalog still doesn't work. The latest solution is to run cvt_pcb_catalog and manually convert the catalog data. An example of this command would be:

cvt_pcb_catalog /designs/capmap/CPCI_ADC_V2/design_maps /tmp/maps

First, make a copy of the design_maps directory (use tar cvf design_maps.tar design_maps). Then, remove all the files with names beginning with design (rm design*). Finally, copy the new files beginning with design from /tmp/maps back to the design_maps directory. Start Librarian again, and complete the catalog as usual (it should work fine). When quitting Librarian, be sure the SAVE the design. That should do it.

May 21, 2002

Having problems running Librarian on Win2000. It would delete all the parts that were definitely in the design. The cause seemed to be the file design_maps/design.catalog. If this file was renamed to OLD_design.catalog_OLD, then everything worked ok. But if you went back to unix, you had to rename this file back to design.catalog, or you got the above error "COMplete DESign..." If this comes up again, do not change the MGC_DATAPREP_DDMS to OFF. It should ALWAYS be set to ON.

The error message received was:

Error: Problem occurred in reading catalog file.

Error: COMplete DESign CATalog aborted.

This was caused by the environment variable MGC_DATAPREP_DDMS being set to ON. Unsetting this environment variable fixed the problem. Unfortunately, we may now have a problem with Lsim because this is why the variable was set in the first place. But since no one uses Lsim that much, I'm not going to think about it.

July 3, 2001

Update from Oct. 17, 2001

Had problem with file design.catalog not being correct. Instead Librarian was using the file named design.pcb_catalog_# (i.e. design.pcb_catalog_15). This meant that catalogs couldn't be completed and ironically, the way to fix this problem was to set MGC_DATAPREP_DDMS to ON.

If MGC_DATAPREP_DDMS is on, it will first look for design.pcb_catalog_#. If this file isn't there, it will then look to design.catalog. If MGC_DATAPREP_DDMS is off, it only looks to design.catalog. So if at any time the design is saved with this variable on, Librarian will only be able to find the complete catalog again if the variable remains set to ON. If, any any time the variable is unset, or set to OFF, Librarian will not be able to complete the catalog.

The following is from an email from Mentor Graphics about our problem:

Note: If env var MGC_DATAPREP_DDMS is set in the shell its value is assumed to be 'ON' unless it is set to 'OFF' , CASE SENSITIVE. Any other value including 'off' will be interpreted as "ON". To disable, delete the variable entirely or set it to 'OFF' case sensitive.

Overview of Librarian and DDMS versioned PCB objects
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Due to enhancements from the PCB division, PCB data can now be DDMS versioned. PCB tools still support both the "old" style PCB versioning that uses links pointing to objects using the object_$ver scheme as well as the new DDMS versioning, which uses the MGC DDMS object with an associated object.attr file. The object.attr file contains version data, a list of other geometries referenced by the geometry object, and a reference back to the source of the geometry object. For forward compatibility, PCB tools can read the old style data, but the output data style is controlled by the MGC_DATAPREP_DDMS environment variable. If the MGC_DATAPREP_DDMS environment variable is present and set to any value other than OFF, NO, or FALSE; then PCB Librarian, PCB Package, and PCB Layout will save their output in the new, DDMS format.

PCB data can also be converted using utilities provided by the PCB division such as $MGC_HOME/bin/cvt_pcb_geometries, cvt_pcb_map, and cvt_pcb_catalog. These utilities can convert objects or directories in place, or, retarget the converted output to a new location. How and why to convert your PCB data is contained in the PCB Products Release Notes, 8.5_1.

Because of the above changes, you will notice some modifications in Librarian. Librarian now recognizes the different PCB object types and represents them with different icons. Since Librarian enables you to edit/create geometries or map files, Librarian must also recognize the MGC_DATAPREP_DDMS environment variable, and save your changes in the proper format.