What is the SKILL command for DirectPlot in Artist

Dear cadence,

I really love the "Direct Plot" menu commands in Analog Artist. Another
menu command I love is the Print - Operation Point. If I could bind
these commands to a key, then I could save a lot of time. However
I was not able to find out the corresponding SKILL function for these
commands. Could you tell me how to do it?

Thanks.

 

you can try
sevDirectPlot(sevSession(hiGetCurrentWindow()) 'asiDirectPlotResultsMenuCB)
works for me but it's not documented as far as i know so it's subject to
change
cheers
stephane

 

'asiDirectPlotResultsMenuCB)

Stéphane generally provides good advice so I don't wish to knock this
nor stifle designer-to-designer solutions; however, I must note that
while you can't easily tell from the name, the
asiDirectPlotResultsMenuCB SKILL function is currently considered
Cadence private by the R&D owners of that SKILL function (PCR
family/product/product_level_2 of CIC/ART_SIM_ENV/SIM_CTRL).

Private SKILL functions are basically those which were not intended for
general use and therefore they sometimes have unintended consequences
(mainly due to the lack of error checking placed in them since they
were written for a specific purpose only). They are not documented.
They are not supported. Most migration problems are due to these
private functions being changed or deleted over time so it's generally
not a good idea to use them for long periods of time.

The good news is that those who use public functions have vastly fewer
migration issues, release to release, bordering on none in many cases.
You can easily run a five-minute quick SKILL Survey of all your SKILL
code (if you have a product 900 SKILL Development Environment license
enabled) to obtain a complete inventory of all the functions you call
and which are public and which are private (and which are defined but
not called, like typos), etc.

The better news is that there is a successful Cadence private functions
resolution process which has been employed over 400 times in the past
few years to provide scores of Customers with the 100% public
documented supported SKILL functionality they deserve (it has never
failed on my watch anyway ... not even for the layerXXX boolean
functions which were recently totally re-written to solve Customers'
issues).

Basically, the process provides you with an avenue to ask Cadence to
tell you the existing public equivalent (if any) for the function you
are using; if that doesn't exist, you can ask Cadence to consider
supporting and documenting this function; if that doesn't fly, you can
ask Cadence to supply you with equivalent documented & supported
functionality. The process has worked hundreds of times so let it work
for you. Running quarterly SKILL hygiene surveys keeps your SKILL code
running well into the future.

With the complete use of public supported functions, Customers find
they have few, if any, SKILL migration problems from release to
release. Only a SKILL Survey knows for sure.

CIW->Tools->SKILL Development->SKILL Surveyor
Good luck,

John Gianni

 

By the way, my admonition abvoe wasn't for Stéphane (who knows all
this) but for any unsuspecting user now or in the future who comes
across this advice and uses it in their SKILL code.

They deserve to know the true status of any and every SKILL function
supplied by Cadence that they feel they need.

Again, simply run a SKILL Survey on any and all your SKILL _before_
putting that code in production. If it's 100% documened & supported,
you'll be doing the right thing for your company's success.

John Gianni
P.S. If you need an IC50 SKILL Quick Reference, drop me an email (while
supplies last). I don't ever read mail to this Yahoo address but you
can find my company email address on the USENET as I've been posting
for 17 years with the same email. (The spammers send me hundreds of
spams a day).