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Plug-socket concept in the schematic

The conceptual approach of the plug-socket concept is explained in the section Plug-Socket concept. The following section explains the use of the concept with P8.

The plug-socket concept fulfills two functions in the context of the ECAD discipline. On the one hand, it can be used to describe a discipline-specific structure (logical placement), and on the other hand, it represents the correctly positioned placement of the macros / fragments to each other (graphical placement):

Logical placement:

The logical link between the electro-technical objects is established by way of the plug-socket concept. For example, if a page has a socket, different plugs within a project can reference it. This results in a logical, discipline-specific project structure. When the ECAD structure is created, the ECAD objects are placed logically.

Graphical placement:

The plug-socket concept is also used to arrange fragments with partial circuits in the correct position to each other on a schematic page. Sockets represent the placeholder for fragments in this case. Fragments can be docked to these placeholders. On a fragment, a plug represents the handle. In the placement, the insertion points of the free texts of the socket and the plug are aligned with each other. This is done while creating and opening the P8 project from within the ECAD structure.

Note:

Plugs and sockets are entered in the schematics as free text, and included only in the macro content, but not in a placeholder object. By importing the macro as a resource, they become the parameter of the respective ECAD object. The data type of the parameter is, then, Socket or Plug.

Plug:

Syntax:

#<Plug:Parametername>

Example:

Socket:

Syntax:

#<Socket:Parametername>

Example:

As part of opening a schematic, plugs and sockets are connected to each other. Here, the graphical elements of the resources concerned are arranged in such a way that the insertion points of the text elements Socket and Plug come to rest perfectly on top of each other. Socket and Plug are not created from the parameter name, but from the values set in the parameters. In P8, connections are established automatically via the integrated Autoconnecting function.

Please note that the calculated values of plugs and sockets in the mechatronic structure may sometimes differ from those in the discipline structure. For example, the this method yields different values. If this is used as an argument in the method indexOf(), it may happen that the result delivers in the discipline a value of -1 (not found) if the collection to which the method is applied does not contain the ECAD structure object.