[FEATURE] gdmci, gdmco, and other lowercase Generic Design Management Functions

[s-y-wu]

Problem

I want to use SKILL's gdmci and gdmco in skillbridge, but it seems like the feature is missing.

from skillbridge import Workspace

ws = Workspace()
library = "foo"
namespace = "Library"

gdm_spec_foo = ws.gdm.create_spec(library, None, None, None, namespace)

ws.gdm.co(gdm_spec_foo)
# RuntimeError: ("eval" 0 t nil ("*Error* eval: undefined function" gdmCo))

ws["gdmco"](gdm_spec_foo)
# The trusty direct loading workaround still does the trick.

I believe gdmci and gdmco were missed because they break the camelCase convention on the SKILL side.

They're also missing in the type hints in workspace.pyi:

     ...
    class gdm:
        add_spec_to_spec_list: staticmethod
        create_spec: staticmethod
        create_spec_from_DDID: staticmethod
        create_spec_list: staticmethod
        execute: staticmethod
        inspect_spec: staticmethod
        is_spec_id: staticmethod
        next_from_spec_list: staticmethod
        obj_is_created: staticmethod
        removename: staticmethod
        reset_spec_list: staticmethod
        spec_listp: staticmethod
        spec_type: staticmethod
        specp: staticmethod
    class ge:
    ...

Potential Solution

Create exceptions for the camelCase translator for gdm's lowercase functions. Here is the full list[^1]:	Function Name
gdmcancel
gdmci
gdmco
gdmdelete
gdmexport
gdmhistory
gdmsetdefver
gdmsetname
gdmstatus
gdmsubmit
gdmupdate

[^1]: Cadence Application Infrastructure SKILL Reference (IC23.1)

[nielsbuwen]

SKILL never fails to surprise me.

I'm glad you already found the workaround. We will discuss if and how we can fix that.

[s-y-wu]

Word. These functions use lowercase to match IBM's Rational ClearCase^1, which is a dinosaur of a version control tool that is or was integrated into Cadence Virtuoso^2.

I think Cadence has moved on to Synchronocity/Dassault DesignSync for version control, but the legacy interface remains in the official Skill API.

In any case, I appreciate your attention on this!

[TM90]

We would leave this issue as it is:

Calling the methods via the direct method is fine.

ws["gdmco"](gdm_spec_foo)

Bringing these methods in our prefix syntax will need special treatment. There are a lot of other skill methods which then could be treated in a specific way too.

Our scope is a lightweight cadence skill <-> python bridge so we decided to not treat these methods in a special way (especially since the above approach seems a good alternative).