In SPICE, we can use "*" to turn the current line into comment. If I want to comment for a couple of lines, is there an easy way to do that, other than put "*" at the beginning of each line.

Thanks.

Spectre (for example) allows C-style comments if the -E argument is specified (or the -I is used to give an include path) - it passes the netlist through cpp - the C preprocessor.

Many years ago (probably about 14-15 years), I used a little wrapper script around HSPICE which did the same thing - it first used cpp to preprocess the netlist, and then invoked hspice. Then I could use multi-line /* */ type comments, and also preprocessor directives like #ifdef and so on. This approach could be used with any simulator.

Regards,

Andrew.

SPICE was invented in the days of punch cards. So each line was intended to be quite brief, and separate from the other lines. You would have done a minimal amount of commenting (because it wastes cards), and multi-line comments would have been never used.

That said, it could have been adapted for more modern input methods.

However, I can't speak for SPICE - you'd have to ask Berkeley this question!

Still, cpp is pretty universally available, so using it should not really be a penalty. I tended to use cpp for the conditional include capabilities as much as anything - you can then have a single netlist which can be used for multiple things, just by giving different -D options to cpp...

Andrew.