Is it possible to pass netlist via command line to ngspice instead of using input file?

Question

Is there a way to use ngspice command line without providing a circuit file? ex: passing the circuit as a string within the command line ?

EDIT

Currently the only way I could use ngspice in command line is by providing an input file.. I could not find an example of using pipe mode though to pass netlist directly via command line without have to use a file to read from.

Isn't there a -p pipe mode for the program? Or do you mean something different? — jonk, Jun 13 '19 at 05:30
I don't use ngspice (or Kicad, which uses ngspice.) But I've heard about the pipe mode perhaps a decade ago. I'm just assuming it's still there. But I've never used it. (There was a problem in ngspice many years ago where outputting anything to a file would cause it to go into file block mode on the input and this made a mess of things. That's where I had heard about the feature. But it was fixed a long time ago, I think. I'm going on vague recollections. But those recollections do suggest to me that you should look into it. There's a manual, I'm sure.) — jonk, Jun 13 '19 at 05:36
Possible duplicate of Running ngspice from command line on a Linux and Windows machine. — Huisman, Jun 13 '19 at 07:08
If I do understand your question, you would like something like: ngspice "voltage divider netlist V1 in 0 1 R1 in out 1k R2 out 0 2k .end" ... How do you get this string in the first place? — Huisman, Jun 13 '19 at 12:27
@Huisman your suggestion will lead into error No such file or directory — simo, Jun 13 '19 at 15:51
I didn't do a suggestion, I was wondering if you wanted something like the grey marked text. And especially I like to know: how is the netlist, the part between the "", being generated in your case? — Huisman, Jun 13 '19 at 16:40
The Window GUI version of ngspice will not work with pipes due to a Windows specific IO handling.
If you can clarify how your netlist is being generated, I might have some suggetions. — Huisman, Jun 13 '19 at 17:07
Thanks @Huisman , I am building a GUI software that will generate the netlist, so its my own code, I am trying to grasp the netlist code, I found this http://ngspice.sourceforge.net/docs/ngspice-html-manual/manual.html — simo, Jun 14 '19 at 20:48

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited Jan 28 '22 at 07:12

In the interactive shell you can input the netlist line by line using "circbyline". Remember, the first line you always enter is a title, the last line needs to be ".end".

e.g., you can save a file codebyline.cir as follows:

circbyline Example Listing
circbyline R1 1 0 1k
circbyline C1 1 0 1m
circbyline V1 1 0 pulse(0 1 0 1n 1n 1u 2u)
circbyline .tran 0.1n 2u
circbyline .end

And then:

cat codebyline.cir | ngspice

Instead of reading out from a file, any other program can generate the netlist and you can pipe it to ngspice. "circbyline" has to prepend every statement.

Huisman · Answer 2 · 2019-06-15T12:05:44.223

0

As commented before, the Window GUI version of ngspice will not work with pipes due to a Windows specific I/O handling.
Maybe you could try finding a workaround.

I think you should have the GUI write the netlist to a file called e.g. "circuit.cir" and have the code of the GUI execute ngspice circuit.cir.

Another option having the GUI making a string based on the netlist and using a batch file which parses the netlist string, writes it to (e.g.) "circuit.cir" and lastly, executes ngspice circuit.cir.
Make sure you seperate each line of the netlist with a unique character (e.g. ¶ or § or whatever) when making one big string of it.

edited Jun 15 '19 at 12:05

answered Jun 13 '19 at 12:28

Huisman

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I don't want to use any GUI, I just want to be able to pass netlist to ngspice without using a file but I have no idea about the pipe mode, can you please share an example of passing netlist using pipe mode? – simo Jul 10 '19 at 08:35
Any update about this? – simo Jul 18 '19 at 12:39
@simo I hardly use ngspice. As said it won't work on Windows and I don't have linux. So, I'm afraid I can't help – Huisman Jul 18 '19 at 12:45
No worries, thank you – simo Jul 18 '19 at 14:46

Is it possible to pass netlist via command line to ngspice instead of using input file?

2 Answers2