Set/override KiCad text variables via CLI option

[cdwilson]

I'm working on a design which has multiple variants, and I'd like to be able to set/override ${VARIABLE} values in the KiCad design files differently for each variant.

I'm currently generating KiBot outputs via a make target similar to the following, which changes the global variant value via the -g CLI option:

VARIANTS=variant_1 variant_2

$(VARIANTS):
	kibot -e $(KICAD_SCHEMATIC_FILE) -b $(KICAD_PCB_FILE) -c $(KIBOT_RELEASE_CFG_FILE) -d $(KIBOT_OUTPUT_DIR) -g variant=$@

However, AFAIK there does not seem to be a way to set/override text variables via the CLI.

@set-soft Is this something that you would be open to adding?

[set-soft]

Hi @cdwilson !

Text variables can be set using shell commands, so you can simply use a command. You can write their value to a file, or just define environment variables and then use commands to get their value (i.e. cat to get a file content, or just echo $VAR to read the environment).

[cdwilson]

@set-soft is there an example you can point me to with a little more detail on how to get this working?

For example, I tried setting an environment variable for the docker container via --env SCHEMATIC_PART_NUMBER="foobar", but when I run KiBot in the container, I get the warning below, and the value is unset in KiCad.

WARNING:(W082) Unknown text variable `SCHEMATIC_PART_NUMBER` (kibot.gs - gs.py:302)

I double checked and the environment variable is being set correctly inside the container:

root@3d669e65f74d:/home/root/workdir# echo $SCHEMATIC_PART_NUMBER
foobar

[set-soft]

I double checked and the environment variable is being set correctly inside the container:

root@3d669e65f74d:/home/root/workdir# echo $SCHEMATIC_PART_NUMBER
foobar

You can just use what you tried:

  set_text_variables:
    - variable: "Comment4"
      command: "echo $SCHEMATIC_PART_NUMBER"

The command is passed to a shell, so you can use anything the UNIX shell can execute, like cat FILE_WITH_THE_VALUE

[cdwilson]

command: "echo $SCHEMATIC_PART_NUMBER"

Got it, this was the piece I was missing. It works now, thanks!

[cdwilson]

FYI, I'm not sure why this didn't occur to me earlier, but I ended up solving this without CLI overrides by just using separate kibot.yaml files for each variant. Each release_<variant>.kibot.yaml contains only the variant-specific configuration, and they all import the same release.kibot.yaml which contains all the shared configuration.

Then, in the makefile, kibot is called with the correct release_<variant>.kibot.yaml for each variant target:

VARIANTS=variant_1 variant_2
[email protected]

$(VARIANTS):
	kibot -e $(KICAD_SCHEMATIC_FILE) -b $(KICAD_PCB_FILE) -c $(KIBOT_RELEASE_CFG_FILE) -d $(KIBOT_OUTPUT_DIR)