Usage of file based voltage sources.

[EliasAOlsson]

I've been trying to use file based voltage sources in some schematics and I haven't been able to make to make it work. I've already read the issue #1276, and the file based voltage sources are still refusing to work. I've tried:

• Using commas and spaces as separators
• .dat and .csv formats
• Absolute and relative paths
  I'm using the software on linux, I guess that's the only noticeable difference with the mentioned discussion.
  Any ideas of what could be happening?

[ra3xdh]

File based source works as expected. Please try this schematic and DAT file. I didn't change anything related to file sources since it was added.

1.dat.txt
22.sch.txt

[EliasAOlsson]

Hi, thanks for the fast response.
I downloaded both and put them in a folder together in downloads. I opened the schematic from Qucs-s through the File > Open options, then selected the file "1.dat.txt". After hitting F2, the simulator will complain that: "Instance: av1 Message: cannot open file 1.dat.txt"
I've tried both relative and absolute paths.

[tomhajjar]

[ra3xdh]

Sorry, I cannot reproduce this error using Qucs-S v25.2.0 and Ngspice v45. This may indicate that your Ngspice installation is compiled without XSPICE support. What Ngspice version are you using? Are you using AppImage or FlatPak? What is your distribution?

[EliasAOlsson]

I've now tried in two machines. The first one is in ubuntu, and I installed Qucs-s following the installation instructions for that. The second machine is running CachyOS (Arch) and I installed Qucs-s through flatpak. I have ngspice-42 in my ubuntu machine and ngspice-45.2 in my Arch machine. Both running Qucs-s 25.2

[ra3xdh]

It's very strange. I am also using Arch(Manjaro) as my main PC and have no problems with file based source. Try to install Qucs-S from AUR instead of using FlatPak. FlatPak may have some problems because of sandboxing.

[EliasAOlsson]

I will try again later and update on the matter.

[EliasAOlsson]

Just to make sure, the file should be added with relative or absolute address?

[ra3xdh]

The absolute DAT file path surely will work. The relative path may have issues.

[EliasAOlsson]

Ok, I managed to make it work.
Somehow, my Arch machine worked as soon as I retried, the flatpak version has no problems. When trying with my Ubuntu machine, I simply installed the flatpak version and it works now. I guess that the version of ngspice plays a role in all of this but I cannot confirm it, as installing the flatpak version on ubuntu made Qucs-s use ngspice 45.2.

I would take the chance now and suggest adding a description somewhere that specifies how this file behaves, I spent a lot of time yesterday researching and it could have been much less by simply having a small description somewhere with both the example file and the example circuit (without the need of digging into the discussions of the repo and so on). I would also say that relative pathing would be incredibly apreciated. I would experiment with it a little bit as one user mentioned that its possible to use .csv.

[jgardona]

For me worked as expected and Im in fedora workspace 43.

About the issue, its clearly your ngspice installation. I Always use the ngspice of my distribution. So, I dont use the flatpaks one.