From e545d6af3fc0927eaa89229b318e5b31ad44ee8f Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Matthias Koefferlein <matthias@koefferlein.de>
Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2019 00:05:17 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] Refined solution for issue-245 by providing a better name
 mapping (checked with ngspice)

---
 src/db/db/dbNetlistSpiceWriter.cc | 15 ++++++++++++---
 testdata/algo/nwriter9_au.txt     |  4 ++--
 2 files changed, 14 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)

diff --git a/src/db/db/dbNetlistSpiceWriter.cc b/src/db/db/dbNetlistSpiceWriter.cc
index d12843ea3..9bde4c2d0 100644
--- a/src/db/db/dbNetlistSpiceWriter.cc
+++ b/src/db/db/dbNetlistSpiceWriter.cc
@@ -246,12 +246,21 @@ std::string NetlistSpiceWriter::net_to_string (const db::Net *net) const
 
     } else {
 
+      //  Tested with ngspice: this tool likes in net names: . $ ! & \ # + : |  (but not at beginning)
+      //  It does not like: , ;
+      //  We translate , to | for the net separator
+
       std::string n = net->expanded_name ();
       std::string nn;
-      nn.reserve (n.size ());
+      nn.reserve (n.size () + 1);
+      if (!isalnum (*n.c_str ())) {
+        nn += "\\";
+      }
       for (const char *cp = n.c_str (); *cp; ++cp) {
-        if (isspace (*cp)) {
-          nn += tl::sprintf ("$x%02x", (unsigned char) *cp);
+        if (! isalnum (*cp) && strchr (".$!&\\#+:,", *cp) == 0) {
+          nn += tl::sprintf ("\\x%02x", (unsigned char) *cp);
+        } else if (*cp == ',') {
+          nn += "|";
         } else {
           nn += *cp;
         }
diff --git a/testdata/algo/nwriter9_au.txt b/testdata/algo/nwriter9_au.txt
index 570272e40..831158d81 100644
--- a/testdata/algo/nwriter9_au.txt
+++ b/testdata/algo/nwriter9_au.txt
@@ -11,9 +11,9 @@ XSC1 n1 n2 C1
 * cell C1
 * pin p1
 * pin p2
-.SUBCKT C1 N1 N$x202
+.SUBCKT C1 N1 N\x202
 * device instance $1 0,0 XCLS
 XD_$1 N1 n3 XCLS PARAMS: U=-17 V=42
 * device instance $2 0,0 XCLS
-XD_$2 n3 N$x202 XCLS PARAMS: U=17 V=-42
+XD_$2 n3 N\x202 XCLS PARAMS: U=17 V=-42
 .ENDS C1