VCD2LXT(1)

💖 VCD2LXT — bestie edition 💖

okay so real talk, this is VCD2LXT(1), part of the Filetype Conversion crew, and it is genuinely one of my faves. sit down, grab a strawberry 🍓, and let's get into it.

✨ NAME ✨

vcd2lxt — the lil icon that converts VCD files into interlaced or linear LXT files 👑

🌸 SYNTAX 🌸

vcd2lxt [VCDFILE] [LXTFILE] [option]...

that's it. two files, then whatever options your heart desires 💅

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So here's the vibe: vcd2lxt takes your VCD files and turns them into interlaced or linear LXT files, no cap.

And the tradeoff, because there's always a tradeoff bestie:

• Noncompressed interlaced files → the fastest access, periodt. speedy queen ✨
• Linear files → the slowest to access, but they have the greatest compression ratios. slow burn, big payoff 💖

pick your fighter, iykyk.

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

• -stats — Prints out statistics on all nets in the VCD file, in addition to doing the conversion. like a little receipt of everything you own, we love data 🌈
• -clockpack — Applies a two-way subtraction algorithm to hunt down nets whose value changes by a constant XOR, or whose value increases/decreases by a constant amount per constant unit of time. This one can reduce dumpfile size dramatically 😭 because value changes get represented as an equation instead of explicitly as a triple of time, net, and value. the way it just... does math on your whole waveform. iconic.
• -chgpack — Emits data to the file after being filtered through zlib (gzip). compressed and cute 🫶
• -linear — Writes out LXT in "linear" format with no backpointers. those backpointers get re-generated during initialization in gtkwave. Also, this mode uses libbz2 (bzip2) as the compression filter. bzip2 bestie!! 💜
• -dictpack <size> — Stores value changes greater than or equal to size bits as an index into a dictionary. Experimentation shows that a value of 18 is optimal for most cases. (trust the science ✨)

🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

Heads up bestie: you should specify dumpfile.vcd directly, or use "-" for stdin. 💖

vcd2lxt dumpfile.vcd dumpfile.lxt -clockpack -chgpack -dictpack 18

This turns on clock packing, zlib compression, and enables the dictionary encoding. And note — using no options writes out a normal LXT file. bare-faced and still stunning 💅

vcd2lxt dumpfile.vcd dumpfile.lxt -clockpack -linear -dictpack 18

Uses linear mode for even smaller files. tiny file, huge slay 🔥

👑 AUTHORS 👑

Anthony Bybell <bybell@rocketmail.com> — the mastermind, the moment, the main character ⭐

💫 SEE ALSO 💫

lxt2vcd(1) vcd2lxt2(1) gtkwave(1) — go read those too, they're all in the family 🧚

okay that's the whole page!! written by Anthony Bybell, version 1.3.34, and it's a VCD2LXT(1) situation, so you know exactly where to find it again. mwah 💖 bye bestie!! 🌸🦋✨