Kicad utils contains utilities for automating your Kicad workflow.

generate-header

Generate header is a tool to generate header files from your schematics to ensure that your schematic and pin mapping always is correct.

Command line usage

You can use the generate-header tool as a standalone command line tool like this:

generate-header -n schematic/foo.net -r U1 -t intel-quark-d2000 -o firmware/schematic.h

The usage is summarized like this:

usage: generate-header -n <net file> -r <ref> -t <template> [-l <template lib dir>] [-o <out file>]

CMake integration

Put this in your CMakeLists.txt:

find_package(KicadUtils)

kicad_generate_header(
    OUTPUT schematic.h
    NET schematic/intel-quark-d2000.net
    REF U1
    TEMPLATE intel-quark-d2000)

and schematic.h will automatically be generated. CMake now knows that schematic.h is generated and depends on schematic/intel-quark-d2000.net.

CMake function usage

Usage:

kicad_generate_header(
  NET                       <netlist>                       (Required)
  OUTPUT                    <file name>                     (Required)
  REF                       <netlist reference>             (Required)
  TEMPLATE                  <template name>                 (Required)
  OUTPUT_DIR                <output base directory>
  TEMPLATE_LIB_LIST         <template library search path>
  TARGET                    <target name>
  ALL
  IN_SOURCE
)

The OUTPUT_DIR defaults to CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR unless IN_SOURCE is given. If so, it defaults to CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR.

If TARGET is set a CMake target with the given name is created. If ALL is specified this target will be a part of the CMake ALL target. See the documentation for add_custom_target's ALL option.

TEMPLATE_LIB_LIST is a list of directories that will be searched for the template. The global variable KICAD_GEN_TEMPLATE_LIBS will be appended to the library list if set.

Templates

The templates are simply Python files that map from the part's pin number to a platform-specific symbol. The kicad-utils KiCAD library contains parts with pins that act as documentation for what the pins mean. If you don't use the kicad-utils library, make sure that your pin usage matches what is used in the library.

For example the nodemcu-arduino template will assume that the part follows the pin ordering and usage for the NODEMCU part in the library and that it used the Arduino IDE with the ESP8266 board package. The generated header file will look like this:

namespace schematic {
...
static const int AD0 = D0;
...    
}

Building

Antlr4

Kicad utils needs a fork of Antlr4 with better CMake support.

mkdir thirdparty/antlr4/build
cd thirdparty/antlr4/build
cmake .. \
    -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=$HOME/opt/antlr4-cpp
make
make install

Kicad utils

mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. \
    -DAntlr4_DIR=$HOME/opt/antlr4-cpp/lib/cmake/Antlr4 \
    -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=$HOME/opt/kicad-utils \
    -DCMAKE_INSTALL_RPATH_USE_LINK_PATH=YES
make
make install