In EDA tcl is the scripting language. Tcl has its quirks but it’s extremely flexible and powerful… and often misunderstood.
I’m going to try to start to semi-regularly post Tcl tips and tricks that might be helpful to EDA engineers and non-EDA engineers alike. So here goes….
Tip #1 Use {} braces to isolate a variable in a longer a string.
If I have a variables for process, voltage, and temperature.
set process 1.0 set voltage 0.8 set temperature -40
And I want to create a file name with the process, voltage, and temperature embedded in it along with the units V and C. Here’s one way:
set filename library_${process}_${voltage}V_${temperature}C.lib
Note how the curly braces are used to wrap process, voltage, and temperature variables. No tricky escaping or temporary variables needed.
Read more about Tcl’s variable syntax here: http://www.tcl.tk/man/tcl8.4/TclCmd/Tcl.htm
