pCell skill for beginners

Hi Stu,

In addition to what Andrew has said, you can also use a CDF callback for a parameter as a validation check, this is a good use of a CDF callback - please also bear in mind the advice in the following solution (written by Andrew):  The Dangers of CDF Callbacks

If you use CDF for a parameter, you can use this to set the Display of the parameter which can appear differently to the parameter name, and you can use the CDF to control whether a parameter is displayed or not. You can create the CDF through SKILL also, so this can be in the file that is loaded by the libInit.il (or in that file directly) alongside the PCell code itself.  Depending on the amount and complexity of your code, you may wish to have multiple files to house the SKILL in, e.g. you've got multiple PCells and want one SKILL code file per cell. You might then just load all of the SKILL from the libInit.il, as in this example:

let( ((libName "pcells") path skillPath ilFiles)

  ;; you might have the code in a subdirectory, if so, add this to the path
  path = ddGetObjReadPath(ddGetObj(libName))

  skillPath = getSkillPath()

  unless(member(path skillPath)

    setSkillPath(cons(path skillPath))

  )

  ilFiles = setof(files getDirFiles(path) rexMatchp("\\.il$" files))

  foreach(file ilFiles

    unless(file == "libInit.il"

      printf("Library %s libInit.il loading %s\n" libName file)

      loadi(file)

    ); unless the file is this file

  ); foreach

  t

); let

An easy way to write the SKILL to create the CDF is to create the CDF using the form-driven interface and then use cdfDump() to write this to a file as SKILL code.

Good luck!

Lawrence.

Hi Stu,

In addition to what Andrew has said, you can also use a CDF callback for a parameter as a validation check, this is a good use of a CDF callback - please also bear in mind the advice in the following solution (written by Andrew):  The Dangers of CDF Callbacks

If you use CDF for a parameter, you can use this to set the Display of the parameter which can appear differently to the parameter name, and you can use the CDF to control whether a parameter is displayed or not. You can create the CDF through SKILL also, so this can be in the file that is loaded by the libInit.il (or in that file directly) alongside the PCell code itself.  Depending on the amount and complexity of your code, you may wish to have multiple files to house the SKILL in, e.g. you've got multiple PCells and want one SKILL code file per cell. You might then just load all of the SKILL from the libInit.il, as in this example:

let( ((libName "pcells") path skillPath ilFiles)

  ;; you might have the code in a subdirectory, if so, add this to the path
  path = ddGetObjReadPath(ddGetObj(libName))

  skillPath = getSkillPath()

  unless(member(path skillPath)

    setSkillPath(cons(path skillPath))

  )

  ilFiles = setof(files getDirFiles(path) rexMatchp("\\.il$" files))

  foreach(file ilFiles

    unless(file == "libInit.il"

      printf("Library %s libInit.il loading %s\n" libName file)

      loadi(file)

    ); unless the file is this file

  ); foreach

  t

); let

An easy way to write the SKILL to create the CDF is to create the CDF using the form-driven interface and then use cdfDump() to write this to a file as SKILL code.

Good luck!

Lawrence.