Rename parts in an entire project

Projects
1

Hi,
I’ve got a project that is almost completed but contains inconsistently named parts. Some ICs are labeled with IC and some with U. Is there a way to rename components in schematic, netlist, CMP and board at the same time?
I tried to change the names in the schematic and exported a netlist. CVPCB wanted me to choose new footprints. After I did that and opened PCBNEW, I saw duplicates of the renamed components. All this reluctance of kicad made me assume that I had choosen the wrong approach :wink:
Thx in advance!

2

Due to the number of replies I assume, that there is no proper procedure to do this. Anyway, I could fix it with search/replace using sed:

sed -i ‘s/U1/IC1/g’ *

This is why I love Kicad: Plain text formats that allow “drawing” with vim and undoing with git :smiley:

[closed]

1 Like
3

ok what about a more user friendly option ?

there many ways to have a list of components, yet none of them allow for bulk renaming

that would be so much easier

4

I wonder the new file format could also have some marker text so we can do regex little better to not change the wrong field

5

Yes, the new file format for the schematic will be s-expression like the PCB file format has been since 5.0(?). For example, here is a resistor in one of my sample projects from the PCB file: (last saved in 5.1.x)

  (module Resistor_THT:R_Axial_DIN0207_L6.3mm_D2.5mm_P10.16mm_Horizontal (layer F.Cu) (tedit 5AE5139B) (tstamp 5BF5DE9B)
    (at 83.185 52.07 90)
    (descr "Resistor, Axial_DIN0207 series, Axial, Horizontal, pin pitch=10.16mm, 0.25W = 1/4W, length*diameter=6.3*2.5mm^2, http://cdn-reichelt.de/documents/datenblatt/B400/1_4W%23YAG.pdf")
    (tags "Resistor Axial_DIN0207 series Axial Horizontal pin pitch 10.16mm 0.25W = 1/4W length 6.3mm diameter 2.5mm")
    (path /5AD03AA2/5AD03DB9)
    (fp_text reference R2 (at -1.905 0 180) (layer F.SilkS)
      (effects (font (size 1 1) (thickness 0.15)))
    )
    (fp_text value 1k0 (at 6.35 0 90) (layer F.Fab)
      (effects (font (size 1 1) (thickness 0.15)))
    )
    (fp_text user %R (at 3.175 0 90) (layer F.Fab)
      (effects (font (size 1 1) (thickness 0.15)))
    )
    (fp_line (start 11.21 -1.5) (end -1.05 -1.5) (layer F.CrtYd) (width 0.05))
    (fp_line (start 11.21 1.5) (end 11.21 -1.5) (layer F.CrtYd) (width 0.05))
    (fp_line (start -1.05 1.5) (end 11.21 1.5) (layer F.CrtYd) (width 0.05))
    (fp_line (start -1.05 -1.5) (end -1.05 1.5) (layer F.CrtYd) (width 0.05))
    (fp_line (start 9.12 0) (end 8.35 0) (layer F.SilkS) (width 0.12))
    (fp_line (start 1.04 0) (end 1.81 0) (layer F.SilkS) (width 0.12))
    (fp_line (start 8.35 -1.37) (end 1.81 -1.37) (layer F.SilkS) (width 0.12))
    (fp_line (start 8.35 1.37) (end 8.35 -1.37) (layer F.SilkS) (width 0.12))
    (fp_line (start 1.81 1.37) (end 8.35 1.37) (layer F.SilkS) (width 0.12))
    (fp_line (start 1.81 -1.37) (end 1.81 1.37) (layer F.SilkS) (width 0.12))
    (fp_line (start 10.16 0) (end 8.23 0) (layer F.Fab) (width 0.1))
    (fp_line (start 0 0) (end 1.93 0) (layer F.Fab) (width 0.1))
    (fp_line (start 8.23 -1.25) (end 1.93 -1.25) (layer F.Fab) (width 0.1))
    (fp_line (start 8.23 1.25) (end 8.23 -1.25) (layer F.Fab) (width 0.1))
    (fp_line (start 1.93 1.25) (end 8.23 1.25) (layer F.Fab) (width 0.1))
    (fp_line (start 1.93 -1.25) (end 1.93 1.25) (layer F.Fab) (width 0.1))
    (pad 2 thru_hole oval (at 10.16 0 90) (size 1.6 1.6) (drill 0.8) (layers *.Cu *.Mask)
      (net 3 "Net-(C3-Pad1)"))
    (pad 1 thru_hole circle (at 0 0 90) (size 1.6 1.6) (drill 0.8) (layers *.Cu *.Mask)
      (net 9 "Net-(R1-Pad2)"))
    (model ${KISYS3DMOD}/Resistor_THT.3dshapes/R_Axial_DIN0207_L6.3mm_D2.5mm_P10.16mm_Horizontal.wrl
      (at (xyz 0 0 0))
      (scale (xyz 1 1 1))
      (rotate (xyz 0 0 0))
    )
  )

Here the line (fp_text reference R2 (at -1.905 0 180) (layer F.SilkS) is the reference designator (well it is two lines, but the extra is extraneous to this example). You can search for the fp_text reference and then modify the following text. The reference designator on the fabrication layer, (fp_text user %R (at 3.175 0 90) (layer F.Fab), should automagically pick up the reference value change because of the %R variable substitution.

I would imagine that the schematic file format would be similar, but since I haven’t installed 5.99 yet I don’t know what the keywords are.

Also, because the file format is a standard markup style, lots of programming languages have libraries that will parse the files so you can manipulate the data in programs as a data structure instead of lots of text strings.

1 Like
6

I’ll also tag along on this 7 year old thread…

I just did a bit of an experiment with Eeschema / Edit / Find and Replace…

With it I was able to replace parts of multiple RefDes strings from Uxx to IC_xx with these settings:
image

It does appear to be a bit of a dangerous thing. You can search through and replace in the RefDes, but the replace won’t limit itself to the Refdes. It changed 38 strings throughout a hierarchical design…

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