Accessories
A collection utility programs have been developed that employ QuantiPhy to enhance their functionality. These utilities are not included as part of QuantiPhy, but are available via PyPi.
Engineering Calculator
ec is a handy command-line calculator for engineers and scientists that employs Reverse-Polish Notation (RPN) and allows numbers to be specified with units and SI scale factors. With RPN, the arguments are pushed onto a stack and the operators pull the needed argument from the stack and push the result back onto the stack. For example, to compute the effective resistance of two parallel resistors:
> ec
0: 100k 50k ||
33.333k:
And here is a fuller example that shows some of the features of ec. In this case we create initialization scripts, ~/.ecrc and ./.ecrc, and a dedicated script, compute-zo, and use it to compute the output impedance of a simple RC circuit:
> cat ~/.ecrc
# define some functions useful in phasor analysis
(2pi * "rads/s")to_omega # convert frequency in Hertz to radians/s
(mag 2pi / "Hz")to_freq # convert frequency in radians/s to Hertz
(j2pi * "rads/s")to_jomega # convert frequency in Hertz to imaginary radians/s
> cat ./.ecrc
# define default values for parameters
10MHz =freq # operating frequency
1nF =Cin # input capacitance
50Ω =Rl # load resistance
> cat ./compute-zo
freq to_jomega # enter 10MHz and convert to radial freq.
Cin * recip # enter 1nF, multiply by 𝑥 and reciprocate
# to compute impedance of capacitor at 10MHz
Rl || # enter 50 Ohms and compute impedance of
# parallel combination
"Ω" =Zo # apply units of Ω and save to Zo
ph # compute the phase of impedance
Zo mag # recall complex impedance from Zo and compute its magnitude
`Zo = $0 ∠ $1 @ $freq.` # display the magnitude and phase of Zo
quit
> ec compute-zo
Zo = 15.166 Ω ∠ -72.343 degs @ 10 MHz.
> ec 500pF =Cin compute-zo
Zo = 26.851 Ω ∠ -57.518 degs @ 10 MHz.
It may be a bit confusing, just remember that with RPN you give the values first by pushing them on to the stack, and then act on them. And once you get use to it, you’ll likely find it quite efficient.
The source code is available from the ec repository on GitHub, or you can install it directly with:
pip install engineering_calculator
Time-Value of Money
Time-Value of Money (TVM) is a command line program that is used to perform calculations involving interest rates. It benefits from QuantiPhy in that it allows values to be given quite flexibly and concisely. The goal of the program is to allow you to quickly run what-if experiments involving financial calculations. So the fact that QuantiPhy allows the user to type 1.2M rather than 1200000 or 1.2e6 helps considerably to reach that goal. For example, when running the program, this is what you would type to calculate the monthly payments for a mortgage:
tvm -p -250k -r 4.5 pmt
The program would respond with:
pmt = $1,266.71
pv = -$250,000.00
fv = $0.00
r = 4.5%
N = 360
The act of converting strings to numbers on the way in and converting numbers to strings on the way out is performed by QuantiPhy.
QuantiPhy is quite flexible when it comes to converting a string to a number, so the present value can be given in any of the following ways: -$250k, -$250,000, -$2.5e5. You can also specify the value without the currency symbol, which is desirable as it generally confuses the shell.
The source code is available from the tvm repository on GitHub, or you can install it directly with:
pip install tvm
PSF Utils
PSF Utils is a library that allows you to read data from a Spectre PSF ASCII file. Spectre is a commercial circuit simulator produced by Cadence Design Systems. PSF files contain signals generated by Spectre. This package also contains two programs that are useful in their own right, but also act as demonstrators as to how to use the library. They are list-psf and plot-psf. The first lists the available signals in a file, and the other displays them.
QuantiPhy is used by plot-psf when generating the axis labels.
The source code is available from the psf_utils repository on GitHub, or you can install it directly with:
pip install psf_utils
Evaluate Expressions in Strings
QuantiPhy Eval is yet another calculator, this one is a Python API that allows you to evaluate expressions that contain numbers with units and SI scale factors that are embedded in strings.
>>> from quantiphy_eval import evaluate
>>> avg_price = evaluate('($1.2M + $1.3M)/2', '$')
>>> print(avg_price)
$1.25M
The source code is available from the quantiphy_eval repository on GitHub, or you can install it directly with:
pip install quantiphy_eval
Schedule Reminders
remind is command line reminder program. At the appointed time it sends you a notification to remind you of some of event. Such a program has no need for SI scale factors. Instead, this program uses the ability of QuantiPhy to scale numbers based on their units to provide a user-interface that takes convenient descriptions of time intervals such as 20m or 2h.
> remind 45m remove roast from oven
Alarm scheduled for 6:36 PM, 45 minutes from now.
Message: remove roast from oven
You can specify the time as either a time-of-day or an elapsed time. You can even combine them to do simple calculations:
> remind 10am -15m meet with Jamie
Alarm scheduled for 9:45 AM, 108 minutes from now.
Message: meet with Jamie
The source code is available from the remind repository on GitHub, or you can install it directly with:
pip install schedule-reminder
RKM Codes
RKM codes are a way of writing numbers that is often used for specifying the sizes of resistors and capacitors on schematics and on the components themselves. In RKM codes the radix is replaced by the scale factor and the units are suppressed. Doing so results in a compact representation that is less likely to be misinterpreted if the number is poorly rendered. For example, a 6.8KΩ could be read as 68KΩ if the decimal point is somehow lost. The RKM version of 6.8KΩ is 6K8. RKM codes are described on Wikipedia.
The popularity of RKM codes was fading because they address a problem that is less common today. However they are making something of a come back as all the characters in a RKM code are either letters or digits and so they can be embedded in a software identifier without introducing illegal characters.
>>> from rkm_codes import from_rkm, to_rkm
>>> r = from_rkm('6K8')
>>> r
Quantity('6.8k')
>>> to_rkm(r)
'6K8'
As a practical example of the use of RKM codes, imagine wanting a program that creates pin names for an electrical circuit based on a naming convention where the pin names must be valid identifiers (must consist only of letters, digits, and underscores). It would take a table of pin characteristics that are used to create the names.
For example:
>>> from quantiphy import Quantity
>>> from rkm_codes import to_rkm, set_prefs as set_rkm_prefs
>>> pins = [
... dict(kind='ibias', direction='out', polarity='sink', dest='dac', value='250nA'),
... dict(kind='ibias', direction='out', polarity='src', dest='rampgen', value='2.5µA'),
... dict(kind='vref', direction='out', dest='dac', value='1.25V'),
... dict(kind='vdda', direction='in', value='2.5V'),
... ]
>>> set_rkm_prefs(map_sf={}, units_to_rkm_base_code=None)
>>> for pin in pins:
... components = []
... if 'value' in pin:
... pin['VALUE'] = to_rkm(Quantity(pin['value']))
... for name in ['dest', 'kind', 'direction', 'VALUE', 'polarity']:
... if name in pin:
... components.append(pin[name])
... print('_'.join(components))
dac_ibias_out_250n_sink
rampgen_ibias_out_2u5_src
dac_vref_out_1v2
vdda_in_2v5
The source code is available from the rkm_codes repository on GitHub, or you can install it directly with:
pip install rkm_codes