Repost: Xyce Google Groups Forum Guidelines and Frequently Asked Questions

[xyce-users]

This is a repost of what *should* be a "pinned" post on the Xyce-Users Google Group.  For good or ill, Google has discontinued support for "pinning" posts at the top of the group page, and so this message is now buried deep in the ancient archives of the list.

We are reposting it to bring it closer to the top again, so that perhaps it will be found more easily by newcomers to the group.

Welcome to the Xyce-Users Google Group

This post is intended to provide guidelines for use of the forum, suggest the best approach to asking for support on this forum, and give group members quick answers to what have become frequently asked questions.

Forum Guidelines
This is a public forum, so please keep your remarks suitable for public consumption.  Please be respectful of other users in your replies to their posts and keep this a place where users of Xyce can be comfortable asking questions.

Submitting bug reports
If you believe you might have found a bug, your first step should be to see the most recent Release Notes, which has a table of known defects and possible workarounds. If you do not see the issue there, and are unsure if you found a bug, submit a report on this forum.

Participants in the forum could illuminate a mistake in your netlist; or if you found a known defect, they may be able to supply a workaround. If there are concerns about using public venues, you can find other methods for reporting  at https://xyce.sandia.gov/contact_us.html .

Submitting GOOD bug reports
Irrespective of the method of reporting, there are a few good procedures tofollow when supplying a bug report:

• Use a clear and descriptive title for the issue to identify the problem.
• Supply a *complete*, working netlist that demonstrates the problem. Ideally, the netlist is the minimum required to reproduce the issue.
• Give a good description of the problem, including expected vs. observed behavior.
• Report the version of Xyce you are running, as found by running `Xyce -v` from the command line.
• Report the operating system you are using.
• Give any other pertinent information, such as:
  •  the invocation used to run Xyce
  • whether you are running in serial or parallel
  • the current phase of the moon and the declination of the Earth's magnetic field at your location (primarily for difficult-to-reproduce bugs)

Frequently Asked Questions

•  Q: Where can I find answers to other frequently asked questions?
   A: Please see the FAQ on our web site, https://xyce.sandia.gov/documentation/FAQ.html .  The list in this post is an abbreviated version of that one.
•  Q: Where can I find Xyce documentation?
   A: We have numerous documents on our documentation web page, https://xyce.sandia.gov/documentation/index.html
  •  The Reference Guide is intended to be complete documentation of every Xyce command, device, and option.
  • The Users' Guide is more focused on general topics of Xyce use rather than exhaustive documentation of individual features.
  • Other documents, such as the various application notes, provide guidance for narrower topics of Xyce use.
•  Q: I have some code I wrote for Xyce that I think will be interesting to others. Can I give it to you under the terms of the GPL?
   A: Perhaps, but it is complicated.  Please see our web site FAQ for more detail.
• Q: I am having trouble building Xyce. Can you tell me what I'm doing wrong?
  A:
  • If you are having trouble building Xyce, the problem is usually due to missing dependent packages or incorrect "configure" invocation.  Our building guide (https://xyce.sandia.gov/documentation/BuildingGuide.html) is the definitive source of instructions for building Xyce, and the steps in that document have been tested thoroughly on the systems mentioned in it.
    
    The Xyce team is generally unable to help with system-specific details for any operating systems other than those we support internally, but the team may be able to help you find the solution to your issue if you provide:
    • The exact "configure" command line you used to configure Xyce.
    • The "config.log" file produced by configure.  The console output of configure is generally not a helpful substitute, as the real reason for a configure failure is usually not evident anywhere but in the "config.log" file.
    • The output (both standard error and standard out) of "make".
  • If you are having trouble building Trilinos, the issue is often the same: missing dependent packages or incorrect invocation of "cmake." We might be able to help you if you provide:
    • The exact cmake command line you used to configure Trilinos.
    • The console output from cmake.
    • The output of "make".
  • If you have tried to use a packaged version of Trilinos from your operating system's package repository, that's probably not going to work. Please see the building guide.
  •  Another common issue is attempting to build Xyce with a newer version of Trilinos than the version against which the Xyce release was tested.  See the Building Guide webpage for more information.
• Q: I ran the Xyce Regression test suite, and it exited with some errors.  Is this something to be worried about or can I just ignore it?
  A: The test suite will pass all tests with our supported builds, but some tests are so sensitive that they may fail in subtle ways on new platforms.  In addition to that possibility, some tests require additional python modules in order to run the scripts that evaluate their results, and you might need to install those. See the Running the Xyce Regression Suite page for more details.  If you find tests failing that are not in these categories, you may have found a platform-specific issue we haven't seen before.  If so, please post details here and we might be able to look at it.
• Q: I tried using a netlist that worked just fine in HSpice/ngspice/PSpice or some other simulator, and Xyce gave an error message about syntax.
  A: Xyce is primarily compatible with basic SPICE3F5 syntax, with a large number of extensions that were requested by Sandia users to add some PSpice compatibility.  Recently we have been working on extending our support to HSPICE compatibility.  While the Xyce team has tried to support some syntax extensions from other simulators, it is not 100% netlist compatible with any other simulator. You will certainly need to do some modifications to get complex netlists to run if they use advanced extensions from simulators other than SPICE3F5. Please consult the Xyce Reference Guide for complete documentation of supported syntax.  The Xyce Reference Guide also has a section on translating syntax between other simulation formats, such as PSpice, and Xyce.  An application note on the differences between HSPICE and Xyce is available on our Documentation page (https://xyce.sandia.gov/documentation/).