INTERACTIVE INTERPRETER

Nutmeg will read in the "raw" data output file created by spice -r or with the write command in an interactive Spice3 session. Nutmeg or interactive Spice3 can plot data from a simulation on a graphics terminal or a workstation display. Most of the commands available in the interactive Spice3 front end are available in nutmeg; where this is not the case, Spice-only commands have been marked with an asterisk ("*"). Note that the raw output file is different from the data that Spice2 writes to the standard output, which may also be produced by spice3 with the "-b" command line option.

Spice and Nutmeg use the X Window System for plotting if they find the environment variable DISPLAY. Otherwise, a graphics-terminal independent interface (MFB) is used. If you are using X on a workstation, the DISPLAY variable should already be set; if you want to display graphics on a system different from the one you are running Spice3 or Nutmeg on, DISPLAY should be of the form "machine:0.0". See the appropriate documentation on the X Window Sytem for more details.

Command Synopsis

spice [ -n ] [ -t term ] [ -r rawfile] [ -b ] [ -i ] [ input file ... ]

nutmeg [ - ] [ -n ] [ -t term ] [ datafile ... ]

Don't try to source the file ".spiceinit" upon startup. Normally spice and nutmeg try to find the file in the current directory, and if it is not found then in the user's home directory.

The program is being run on a terminal with mfb name term.

Run in batch mode. Spice3 reads the default input source (e.g. keyboard) or reads the given input file and performs the analyses specified; output is either Spice2-like line-printer plots ("ascii plots") or a spice rawfile. See the following section for details. Note that if the input source is not a terminal (e.g. using the IO redirection notation of "<") Spice3 defaults to batch mode (-i overrides). This option is valid for Spice3 only.

Run in server mode. This is like batch mode, except that a temporary rawfile is used and then written to the standard output, preceded by a line with a single "@", after the simulation is done. This mode is used by the spice daemon. This option is valid for Spice3 only.

Run in interactive mode. This is useful if the standard input is not a terminal but interactive mode is desired. Command completion is not available unless the standard input is a terminal, however. This option is valid for Spice3 only.

Use rawfile as the default file into which the results of the simulation are saved. This option is valid for Spice3 only.

For nutmeg, further arguments are taken to be data files in binary or ascii format (see sconvert(1)) which are loaded into nutmeg. If the file is in binary format, it may be only partially completed (useful for examining Spice2 output before the simulation is finished). One file may contain any number of data sets from different analyses.

EXPRESSIONS, FUNCTIONS, AND CONSTANTS

An expression is an algebraic formula involving vectors and scalars (a scalar is a vector of length 1) and the following operations:

+ - * / ^ %

Also available are the logical operations & (and), | (or), ! (not), and the relational operations <, >, >=, <=, =, and <> (not equal). If used in an algebraic expression they work like they would in C, producing values of 0 or 1. The relational operators have the following synonyms:

gt >
lt <
ge >=
le <=
ne <>
eq \\&=
and &
or |
not !

The following functions are available:

mag(vector)	The magnitude of vector
ph(vector)	The phase of vector
j(vector)	i (sqrt(-1)) times vector
real(vector)	The real component of vector
imag(vector)	The imaginary part of vector
db(vector)	20 log10(mag(vector))
log(vector)	The logarithm (base 10) of vector
ln(vector)	The natural logarithm (base e) of vector
exp(vector)	e to the vector power
abs(vector)	The absolute value of vector.
sqrt(vector)	The square root of vector.
sin(vector)	The sine of vector.
cos(vector)	The cosine of vector.
tan(vector)	The tangent of vector.
atan(vector)	The inverse tangent of vector.
norm(vector)	The vector normalized to 1( i.e,the largest magnitude of any componentis 1)
rnd(vector)	A vector with each component a random integer between 0 and the absolute value of the vectors's corresponding component.
mean(vector)	The result is a scalar (a length 1 vector)that is the mean of the elements of vector.
vector(number)	The result is a vector of length number, with elements 0, 1, ... number - 1. If number is a vector then just the first element is taken, and if it isn't an integer then the floor of the magnitude is used.
lenght(vector)	The length of vector.
interpolate(plot.vector)	The result of interpolating the named vector onto the scale of the current plot. This function uses the variable polydegree to determine the degree of interpolation.
deriv(vector)	Calculates the derivative of the given vector.  This uses numeric differentiation by interpolating a polynomial and may not produce satisfactory results (particularly with iterated differentiation).The implementation only caculates the dirivative with respect to the real componant of that vector's scale.

 

A vector may be either the name of a vector already defined or a floating-point number (a scalar). A number may be written in any format acceptable to SPICE, such as 14.6Meg or -1.231e-4. Note that you can either use scientific notation or one of the abbreviations like MEG or G, but not both. As with SPICE, a number may have trailing alphabetic characters after it.

The notation expr [num] denotes the num'th element of expr. For multi-dimensional vectors, a vector of one less dimension is returned. Also for multi-dimensional vectors, the notation expr[m][n] will return the nth element of the mth subvector. To get a subrange of a vector, use the form expr[lower, upper].

To reference vectors in a plot that is not the current plot (see the setplot command, below), the notation plotname.vecname can be used.

Either a plotname or a vector name may be the wildcard all. If the plotname is all, matching vectors from all plots are specified, and if the vector name is all, all vectors in the specified plots are referenced. Note that you may not use binary operations on expressions involving wildcards it is not obvious what all + all should denote, for instance. Thus some (contrived) examples of expressions are:

cos(TIME) + db(v(3))
sin(cos(log([1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10])))
TIME * rnd(v(9)) - 15 * cos(vin#branch) ^ [7.9e5 8]
not ((ac3.FREQ[32] & tran1.TIME[10]) gt 3)

There are a number of pre-defined constants in nutmeg. They are:

pi	(3.14159...)
e	The base of natural logarithms (2.71828...)
c	The speed of light (299,792,500 m/sec)
i	The square root of -1
kelvin	Absolute 0 in Centigrade (-273.15 C)
echarge	The charge on an electron (1.6021918e-19 C)
boltz	Boltzman's constant (1.3806226e-23)
planck	Planck's constant (h = 6.626200e-34)

These are all in MKS units. If you have another variable with a name that conflicts with one of these then it takes precedence.

COMMAND INTERPRETATION

Note that for the script to work with Spice3, it must begin with a blank line (or whatever else, since it is thrown away) and then a line with .control on it. This is an unfortunate result of the source command being used for both circuit input and command file execution. Note also that this allows the user to merely type the name of a circuit file as a command and it is automatically run. The commands are executed immediately, without running any analyses that may be spicified in the circuit (to execute the analyses before the script executes, include a "run" command in the script).

There are various command scripts installed in /usr/local/lib/spice/scripts (or whatever the path is on your machine), and the default sourcepath includes this directory, so you can use these command files (almost) like builtin commands.

COMMANDS

Ac*: Perform an AC, small-signal frequency response analysis

General Form

ac ( DEC | OCT | LIN ) N Fstart Fstop

Alias: Create an alias for a command

General Form

alias [word] [text ...]

Alter*: Change a device or model parameter

General Form

alter device value alter device parameter value [ parameter value ]

For specifying vectors as values, start the vector with "[", followed by the values in the vector, and end with "]". Be sure to place a space between each of the values and before and after the "[" and "]".

Asciiplot: Plot values using old-style character plots

General Form

asciiplot plotargs

Aspice: Asynchronous spice run

General Form

aspice input-file [output-file]

Bug: Mail a bug report

General Form

bug

Cd: Change directory

General Form

cd [directory]

Destroy: Delete a data set

General Form

destroy [plotnames | all]

Dc*: Perform a DC-sweep analysis

General Form

dc Source-Name Vstart Vstop Vincr [ Source2 Vstart2 Vstop2 Vincr2 ]

Define: Define a function

General Form

define function(arg1, arg2, ...) expression

Some useful definitions are:

define max(x,y) (x > y) * x + (x <= y) * y define min(x,y) (x < y) * x + (x >= y) * y

Delete*: Remove a trace or breakpoint

General Form

delete [ debug-number ... ]

Diff: Compare vectors

General Form

diff plot1 plot2 [vec ...]

Display: List known vectors and types

General Form

display [varname ...]

Echo: Print text

General Form

echo [text...]

Edit*: Edit the current circuit

General Form

edit [ file ]

Fourier: Perform a fourier transform

General Form

fourier fundamental_frequency [value ...]

Hardcopy: Save a plot to a file for printing

General Form

hardcopy file plotargs

Help: Print summaries of Spice3 commands

General Form

help [all] [command ...]

History: Review previous commands

General Form

history [number]

Iplot*: Incremental plot

General Form

iplot [ node ...]

Jobs: List active asynchronous spice runs

General Form

jobs

Let: Assign a value to a vector

General Form

let name = expr

Linearize*: Interpolate to a linear scale

General Form

linearize vec ...

Listing*: Print a listing of the current circuit

General Form

listing [logical] [physical] [deck] [expand]

Load: Load rawfile data

General Form

load [filename] ...

Op*: Perform an operating point analysis

General Form

op

Plot: Plot values on the display

General Form

plot exprs [ylimit ylo yhi] [xlimit xlo xhi] [xindices xilo xihi] [xcompress comp] [xdelta xdel] [ydelta ydel] [xlog] [ylog] [loglog] [vs xname] [xlabel word] [ylabel word] [title word] [samep] [linear]

The xname argument is an expression to use as the scale on the x-axis. If xlog or ylog are present then the X or Y scale, respectively, is logarithmic (loglog is the same as specifying both). The xlabel and ylabel arguments cause the specified labels to be used for the X and Y axes, respectively.

If samep is given, the values of the other parameters (other than xname) from the previous plot, hardcopy, or asciiplot command is used unless re-defined on the command line.

The title argument is used in the place of the plot name at the bottom of the graph.

The linear keyword is used to override a default log-scale plot (as in the output for an AC analysis).

Finally, the keyword polar to generate a polar plot. To produce a smith plot, use the keyword smith. Note that the data is transformed, so for smith plots you will see the data transformed by the function (x - 1) / (x + 1). To produce a polar plot with a smith grid but without performing the smith transform, use the keyword smithgrid.

Print: Print values

General Form

print [col] [line] expr ...

Quit: Leave Spice3 or Nutmeg

General Form

quit

Rehash: Reset internal hash tables

General Form

rehash

Reset*: Reset an analysis

General Form

reset

Reshape: Alter the dimensionality or dimensions of a vector

General Form

reshape vector vector ... or reshape vector vector ... [ dimension, dimension, ... ] or reshape vector vector ... [ dimension ][ dimension ] ...

Resume*: Continue a simulation after a stop

General Form

resume

Rspice: Remote spice submission

General Form

rspice input file

Note: rspice will not acknowledge elements that have been changed via the "alter" or "altermod" commands.

Run*: Run analysis from the input file

General Form

run [rawfile]

Rusage: Resource usage

General Form

rusage [resource ...]

Save*: Save a set of outputs

General Form

save [all | output ...] .save [all | output ...]

When the keyword "all" appears in the save command, all default values (node voltages and voltage source currents) are saved in addition to any other values listed.

Sens*: Run a sensitivity analysis

General Form

sens output_variable sens output_variable ac ( DEC | OCT | LIN ) N Fstart Fstop

Set: Set the value of a variable

General Form

set [word] set [word = value] ...

The value of word may be inserted into a command by writing $word. If a variable is set to a list of values that are enclosed in parentheses (which must be separated from their values by white space), the value of the variable is the list.

The variables used by nutmeg are listed in the following section.

Setcirc*: Change the current circuit

General Form

setcirc [circuit name]

Setplot: Switch the current set of vectors

General Form

setplot [plotname]

Note that here the word "plot" refers to a group of vectors that are the result of one SPICE run. When more than one file is loaded in, or more than one plot is present in one file, nutmeg keeps them separate and only shows you the vectors in the current plot.

Settype: Set the type of a vector

General Form

settype type vector ...

Shell: Call the command interpreter

General Form

shell [ command ]

Shift: Alter a list variable

General Form

shift [varname] [number]

Show*: List device state

General Form

show devices [ : parameters ] , ...

Old Form

show -v @device [ [ name ] ]

If no parameters are specified, the values for a standard set of parameters are listed. If the list of parameters contains a "+", the default set of parameters is listed along with any other specified parameters.

For both devices and parameters, the word "all" has the obvious meaning. Note: there must be spaces separating the ":" that divides the device list from the parameter list.

The "old form" (with "-v") prints the data in a older, more verbose pre-spice3f format.

Showmod*: List model parameter values

General Form

showmod models [ : parameters ] , ...

Source: Read a Spice3 input file

General Form

source file

For Nutmeg: Reads commands from the file filename. Lines beginning with the character * are considered comments and ignored.

Status*: Display breakpoint information

General Form

status

Step*: Run a fixed number of timepoints

General Form

step [number]

Stop*: Set a breakpoint

General Form

stop [ after n] [ when value cond value ] ...

eq or \\&= equal to
ne or <> not equal to
gt or > greater than
lt or < less than
ge or >= greater than or equal to
le or <= less than or equal to

Tf*: Run a Transfer Function analysis

General Form

tf output_node input_source

Trace*: Trace nodes

General Form

trace [ node ...]

Tran*: Perform a transient analysis

General Form

tran Tstep Tstop [ Tstart [ Tmax ] ] [ UIC ]

Transpose: Swap the elements in a multi-dimensional data set

General Form

transpose vector vector ...

spice3 > dc vgg 0 5 1 vdd 0 5 1

spice3 > plot i(vdd)

spice3 > transpose i(vdd) v(drain)

spice3 > plot i(vdd) vs v(drain)[0]

Unalias: Retract an alias

General Form

unalias [word ...]

Undefine: Retract a definition

General Form

undefine function

Unset: Clear a variable

General Form

unset [word ...]

Version: Print the version of Spice

General Form

version [version id]

Where: Identify troublesome node or device

General Form

where

Write: Write data to a file

General Form

write [file] [exprs]

First vectors are grouped together by plots, and written out as such (i.e, if the expression list contained three vectors from one plot and two from another, then two plots are written, one with three vectors and one with two). Additionally, if the scale for a vector isn't present, it is automatically written out as well.

The default format is ascii, but this can be changed with the set filetype command. The default filename is rawspice.raw, or the argument to the -r flag on the command line, if there was one, and the default expression list is all.

Xgraph: use the xgraph(1) program for plotting.

General Form

xgraph file [exprs] [plot options]

If file is either "temp" or "tmp" a temporary file is used to hold the data while being plotted. For available plot options, see the plot command. All options except for polar or smith plots are supported.

CONTROL STRUCTURES

While End

General Form

while condition statement ... end

Repeat End

General Form

repeat [number] statement ... end

Dowhile End

General Form

dowhile condition statement ... end

Foreach End

General Form

foreach var value ... statement ... end

If Then Else

General Form

if condition statement ... else statement ... end

Label

General Form

label word

Goto

General Form

goto word

Continue

General Form

continue

Break

General Form

break

Of course, control structures may be nested. When a block is entered and the input is the terminal, the prompt becomes a number of >'s corresponding to the number of blocks the user has entered. The current control structures may be examined with the debugging command cdump.

VARIABLES

The variables meaningful to nutmeg which may be altered by the set command are:
 
 

diff_abstol	he absolute tolerance used by the diff command.
appendwrite	Append to the file when a write command is issued, if one already exists.
colorN	These variables determine the colors used, if X is being run on a color display.IN may be between 0 and 15. Color 0 is the background, color 1 is the grid and text color, and colors 2 through 15 are used in order for vectors plotted. The value of the color variables should be names of colors, which may be found in the file /usr/lib/rgb.txt.
combplot	Plot vectors by drawing a vertical line from each point to the X-axis, as opposed to joining the points.Note that this option is subsumed in the plottype option, below.
cpdebug	Print cshpar debugging information (must be complied with the -DCPDEBUG flag). Unsupported in the current release
debug	If set then a lot of debugging information is printed (must be compiled with the -DFTEDEBUG flag).Unsupported in the current release.
device	The name (/dev/tty??) of the graphics device.If this variable isn't set then the user's terminal is used.To do plotting onanother monitor you probably have to set both the device and term variables.(If device is set to the name of a file, nutmeg dumps the graphics control codes into this file -- this is useful for saving plots.)
echo	Print out each command before it is executed.
filetype	This can be either ascii or binary, and determines what format rawfiles are. The default is ascii.
fourgridsize	How many points to use for interpolating into when doing fourier analysis.
gridsize	If this variable is set to an integer, this number is used as the number of equally spaced points to use for the Y-axis when plotting. Otherwise the current scale is used (which may not have equally spaced points). If the current scale isn't strictly monotonic, then this option has no effect.
hcopydev	If this is set, when the hardcopy command is run the resulting file is automatically printed on the printer named hcopydev with the command lpr -Phcopydev -g file.
hcopyfont	This variable specifies the font name for hardcopy output plots. The value is device dependent.
hcopyfontsize	This is a scaling factor for the font used in hardcopy plots.
hcopydevtype	This variable specifies the type of the printer output to use in the hardcopy command. If hcopydevtype is not set, plot (5) format is assumed. The standard distribution currently recognizes postscript as an alternative output format. When used in conjunction with hcopydev, hcopydevtype should specify a format supported by  the printer.
hcopyfontsize	This is a scaling factor for the font used in hardcopy plots.
hcopydevtype	This variable specifies the type of the printer output to use in the hardcopy command. If hcopydevtype is not set, plot (5) format is assumed. The standard distribution currently recognizes postscript as an alternative output format. When used in conjunction with hcopydev, hcopydevtype should specify a format supported by  the printer.
height	The length of the page for asciiplot and print col.
history	The number of events to save in the history list.
lprplot5	This is a printf(3s) style format string used to specify the command to use for sending plot(5)-style plots to a printer or plotter. The first parameter supplied is the printer name, the second parameter supplied is a file name containing the plot. Both parameters are strings. It is trivial to cause Spice3 to abort by supplying a unreasonable format string.
lprps	This is a printf(3s) style format string used to specify the command to use for sending PostScript plots to a printer or plotter. The first parameter supplied is the printer name, the second parameter  supplied is a file name containing the plot. Both parameters are strings. It is trivial to cause Spice3 to abort by supplying a unreasonable format  string.
nfreqs	The number of frequencies to compute in the fourier command. (Defaults to 10.)
nobreak	Don't have asciiplot and print col break between pages.
noasciiplotvalue	Don't print the first vector plotted to the left when doing an asciiplot.
noclobber	Don't overwrite existing files when doing IO redirection.
noglob	Don't expand the global characters `*', `?', `[', `and `]'. This is the default.
nogrid	Don't plot a grid when graphing curves (but do label the axes).
nomoremode	If nomoremode is not set, whenever a large amount of data is being printed to the screen (e.g, the print or asciiplot commands), the output is stopped every screenful and continues when a carriage return is typed. If nomoremode is set then data scrolls off the screen without check.
nonomatch	If noglob is unset and a global expression cannot be matched, use the global characters literally instead of complaining.
nosort	Don't have display sort the variable names.
noprintscale	Don't print the scale in the leftmost column when a print col command is given.
numdgt	The number of digits to print when printing tables of data (fourier, print col). The default precision is 6 digits. On the VAX, approximately 16 decimal digits are available using double precision, so numdgt should not be more than 16. If the number is negative, one fewer digit is printed to ensure constant widths in tables.
plottype	This should be one of normal, comb, or point:chars. normal, the default, causes points to be plotted as parts of connected lines. comb causes a comb plot to be done (see the description of the combplot variable above). point causes each point to be plotted separately - the chars are a list of characters that are used for each vector plotted. If they are omitted then a default set is used.
polydegree	The degree of the polynomial that the plot command should fit to the data. If polydegree is N, then nutmeg fits a degree N polynomial to every set of N points and draw 10 intermediate points in between each endpoint. If the points aren't monotonic, then it tries rotating the curve and reducing the degree until a fit is achieved.
polysteps	The number of points to interpolate between every pair of points available when doing curve fitting.  The default is 10.
program	The name of the current program (argv[0])
prompt	The prompt, with the character `!' replaced by the current event number.
rawfile	The default name for rawfiles created.
diff_reltol	The relative tolerance used by the diff command.
remote_shell	Overrides the name used for generating rspice runs (default is "rsh").
rhost	The machine to use for remote SPICE-3 runs, instead of the default one (see the description of the rspice command, below).
rprogram	The name of the remote program to use in the rspice command.
slowplot	Stop between each graph plotted and wait for the user to type return before continuing.
sourcepath	A list of the directories to search when a source command is given. The default is the current directory and the standard spice library (/usr/local/lib/spice, or whatever LIBPATH is #defined to in the Spice3 source.
spicepath	The program to use for the aspice command. The default is /cad/bin/spice.
term	The mfb name of the current terminal.
units	If this is degrees, then all the trig functions will use degrees instead of radians.
unixcom	If a command isn't defined, try to execute it as a UNIX command. Setting this option has the effect of giving a rehash command, below. This is useful for people who want to use nutmeg as a login shell.
verbose	Be verbose. This is midway between echo and debug / cpdebug.
diff_vntol	The absolute voltage tolerance used by the diff command.

 

width	The width of the page for asciiplot and print col.
x11lineararcs	Some X11 implementations have poor arc drawing. If you set this option, Spice3 will plot using an approximation to the curve using straight lines.
xbrushheight	The height of the brush to use if X is being run.
xbrushwidth	The width of the brush to use if X is being run.
xfont	The name of the X font to use when plotting data and entering labels. The plot may not look good if this is a variable-width font.

 

MISCELLANEOUS

xname node1 node2 ... subcktname

Nutmeg occasionally checks to see if it is getting close to running out of space, and warns the user if this is the case. (This is more likely to be useful with the SPICE front end.)

C-shell type quoting with "" and '', and backquote substitution may be used. Within single quotes, no further substitution (like history substitution) is done, and within double quotes, the words are kept together but further substitution is done. Any text between backquotes is replaced by the result of executing the text as a command to the shell.

Tenex-style ('set filec' in the 4.3 C-shell) command, filename, and keyword completion is possible: If EOF (control-D) is typed after the first character on the line, a list of the commands or possible arguments is printed (If it is alone on the line it exits nutmeg). If escape is typed, then nutmeg trys to complete what the user has already typed. To get a list of all commands, the user should type &ltspace;> ^D.

The values of variables may be used in commands by writing $varname where the value of the variable is to appear. The special variables $$ and $< refer to the process ID of the program and a line of input which is read from the terminal when the variable is evaluated, respectively. If a variable has a name of the form $&word;, then word is considered a vector (see above), and its value is taken to be the value of the variable. If $foo is a valid variable, and is of type list, then the expression $foo[low-high] represents a range of elements. Either the upper index or the lower may be left out, and the reverse of a list may be obtained with $foo[len-0]. Also, the notation $?foo evaluates to 1 if the variable foo is defined, 0 otherwise, and $#foo evaluates to the number of elements in foo if it is a list, 1 if it is a number or string, and 0 if it is a boolean variable.

History substitutions, similar to C-shell history substitutions, are also available see the C-shell manual page for all of the details.

The characters ~, {, and } have the same effects as they do in the C-Shell, i.e., home directory and alternative expansion. It is possible to use the wildcard characters *, ?, [, and ] also, but only if you unset noglob first. This makes them rather useless for typing algebraic expressions, so you should set noglob again after you are done with wildcard expansion. Note that the pattern [^abc] matchs all characters except a, b, and c.

IO redirection is available the symbols >, >>, >&, >>&, and < have the same effects as in the C-shell.

You may type multiple commands on one line, separated by semicolons.

If you want to use a different mfbcap file than the default (usually ~cad/lib/mfbcap), you have to set the environment variable SPICE_MFBCAP before you start nutmeg or spice. The -m option and the mfbcap variable no longer work.

If X is being used, the cursor may be positioned at any point on the screen when the window is up and characters typed at the keyboard are added to the window at that point. The window may then be sent to a printer using the xpr(1) program.

Nutmeg can be run under VAX/VMS, as well as several other operating systems. Some features like command completion, expansion of *, ?, and [], backquote substitution, the shell command, and so forth do not work.

On some systems you have to respond to the -more- prompt during plot with a carriage return instead of any key as you can do on UNIX.

BUGS

If you redefine colors after creating a plot window with X, and then cause the window to be redrawn, it does not redraw in the correct colors.

When defining aliases like

alias pdb plot db( '!:1' - '!:2' )

In a user-defined function, the arguments cannot be part of a name that uses the plot.vec syntax. For example:

define check(v(1)) cos(tran1.v(1))

If you type plot all all, or otherwise use a wildcard reference for one plot twice in a command, the effect is unpredictable.

The asciiplot command doesn't deal with log scales or the delta keywords.

Often the names of terminals recognized by MFB are different from those in /etc/termcap. Thus you may have to reset your terminal type with the command

set term = termname

The hardcopy command is useless on VMS and other systems without the plot command, unless the user has a program that understands plot(5) format.

Spice3 recognizes all the notations used in SPICE2 .plot cards, and translates vp(1) into ph(v(1)), and so forth. However, if there are spaces in these names it won't work. Hence v(1, 2) and (-.5, .5) aren't recognized.

BJTs can have either 3 or 4 nodes, which makes it difficult for the subcircuit expansion routines to decide what to rename. If the fourth parameter has been declared as a model name, then it is assumed that there are 3 nodes, otherwise it is considered a node. To disable this, you can set the variable "nobjthack" which forces BJTs to have 4 nodes (for the purposes of subcircuit expansion, at least).

The @name[param] notation might not work with trace, iplot, etc. yet.