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Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2015 00:35:58 +0200 (CEST)
From: Roland Lutz <rlutz AT hedmen DOT org>
To: "Gabriel Paubert (paubert AT iram DOT es) [via geda-user AT delorie DOT com]" <geda-user AT delorie DOT com>
Subject: Re: [geda-user] Improved Find
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On Sun, 2 Aug 2015, Gabriel Paubert (paubert AT iram DOT es) [via geda-user AT delorie DOT com] wrote:
> I always had the impression that the attribute handling rules are too 
> complex; it would be much simpler to say that all attributes are 
> promoted and the symbol attributes are only sensible initial default 
> values, which are always ignored when processing the schematics 
> (generating a netlist being the most common example).

The promotion rules only apply to gschem; gnetlist treats all attributes 
as un-promoted regardless of the configuration settings.  (I guess this 
should be documented somewhere.)

If a component has an attribute with the same name as a symbol attribute, 
gnetlist uses that attribute.  Otherwise, it uses the symbol's attribute.

You can (almost) get the behavior you described by adding these lines to 
your gafrc file:

   (attribute-promotion "enabled")
   (promote-invisible "enabled")

This will cause gschem to promote all attributes; further changes of 
existing symbol attributes won't affect the schematic.  To un-set an 
attribute, set its value to "unknown".  (This has some limitations, 
though, as John Doty pointed out.)

Roland