Re: SPICE3 Model debugging

From: Stuart Brorson (sdb_at_cloud9.net)
Date: 11/29/04 

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 18:31:54 -0000

rahul <rahuls@hrl.com> wrote:
: Hi All,

: I am trying to understand the spice3 programming model

: I have added new parameters to existing jfet model
: by making changes to over 20 files. I wish
: to know if there are debugging functions provided inside
: spice3 which I can use during simulation to show
: these variables.

Are you using ngspice? I suggest you do so because it has an active
developer community. Ngspice is basically SPICE3f5 cleaned up with all
sorts of bugfixes, and ported to build under the usual GNU makefile
system. The latest is available for (free, unrestricted) download at:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/ngspice

If you are, I have put in a call to memcheck (currently commented
out) into the ngspice.c. I have also used a DEBUG flag which -- when
set -- will allow you to do things like this:

#ifdef DEBUG
printf("In fcn foo, variable bar = %s\n", bar);
#endif

Setting DEBUG = 1 in config.h will allow you to trace the programs
operation through netlist input and parsing. (I haven't done anything
with analysis.) Look at the parsing functions in the frontend
directory for hints.

BTW: If you're not using ngspice, then you're on your own, and will
need to fix a lot of other bugs. The random SPICE3f5 code which is
floating around the web is in bad shape because it's unmaintained.
Ngspice is the way to go.

Stuart