KiCad

File Format Definitions ... And Plugin Support

Asked by Dan Chianucci

I recently wrote a python script to convert between Eagle v6 and Kicad file formats. https://github.com/Trump211/Eagle2Kicad

 Throughout the process I had to become very familiar with both formats, and so I found a few errors in the Kicad file format documentation. I know that these documents are provided with he binary installer, however I am guessing that these are outdated (date is 2009).

1) I've searched the source on Launchpad, however I can't find these documents. Where can I locate these documents so that I can submit some corrections.

2) I've also heard tell about an upcoming plugin feature. Is there any code released for this? I'd like to try my hand at translating the python board conversion script into c++ so that It can be eventually released as a plugin.

3) Finally, I've seen documents talking about "s-expressions" and new file formats, is this relevant to the .brd and .sch files that are saved or is this the only relevant to how the data structures are held internally.

Thanks in advance

-Trump211

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Lorenzo Marcantonio (l-marcantonio) said : 		#1

On Sat, Jan 21, 2012 at 05:20:46AM -0000, Dan Chianucci wrote:
> 1) I've searched the source on Launchpad, however I can't find these documents. Where can I locate these documents so that I can submit some corrections.

kicad-doc on launchpad...

> 2) I've also heard tell about an upcoming plugin feature. Is there any code released for this? I'd like to try my hand at translating the python board conversion script into c++ so that It can be eventually released as a plugin.

There is *some* stuff under conditional compilation (NEW_SAVE and NEW_LOAD or something similar) but no idea on the functionality level.

> 3) Finally, I've seen documents talking about "s-expressions" and new file formats, is this relevant to the .brd and .sch files that are saved or is this the only relevant to how the data structures are held internally.

IIRC it long term work in progress (many months away from completion). Most probably will be completed together with the nanometre stuff...

IMHO your best bet for externally generating/reading kicad files is the current .sch/.brd (or the library files) format. Backward compatibility *is* maintained so if you *write* just pick the current format.

I personally have written a common lisp .sch reader and it only had problems when they added the bitmap object (and only if there is a bitmap object...)

--
Lorenzo Marcantonio
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