I'm going to do a high-level explanation of what the code in the Jumperless is actually doing. There's a lot going on and it's in a bunch of separate files so I think it will be helpful for people who what to understand or improve upon it.
Table of Contents
- General terms - the names I've decided to call things
- What's being stored - how the overall state is stored
- File Parsing - how we fill in those arrays
- Routing - how we find valid paths for each connection
- Controlling the crosspoint switches - how we send that data to the CH446Qs
- LEDs - how we choose unique colors for each net
- The Wokwi bridge app - how we scrape the Wokwi page for updates
This is going to be really long and so I'll be filling out parts as I finish them in no particular order.
## General terms
I've made up terms for things here that may or may not be the formal definition, so I should probably let you know what I chose.
**Breadboard Chips** - This refers to the 8 CH446Q crosspoint switches (labeled A-H) that have their Y pins connected to the breadboard. This excludes Chip L which actually has it's X pins connected to the 4 corners of the board (rows 1, 30, 31 (b1), 60 (b30))
**Special Function Chips** - This refers to the 4 crosspoints (labeled I-L) that connect to everything else; the Nano header, power supplies, DACs, GPIO from the RP2040, etc...
**Nodes** - Also used synonymously with **Row** especially when it's on the breadboard or Nano Header. And end point to a bridge
**Bridges** - Just 2 nodes that should be connected
**Nets** - Groups of nodes and bridges that should all be electrically connected to each other
**Bounce** - Sometimes there won't be an available path directly from one node to another, so in this case it will pick another chip with a free path to the start and end chips and "bounce" through it.
**Paths** - Similar to a **bridge**, except that it contains data for *how* that bridge is connected. So it will have which chips and which X and X pins are needed to make the connection
### Defines
You'll see a lot of these, they're all in JumperlessDefinesRP2040.h. But the point of this whole this is so you don't have to dig through the code, so I'll put the abridged version here:
```
#define CHIP_A 0
...
#define CHIP_L 11
#define t1 1
...
#define t30 30
#define b1 31
...
#define b30 60
#define NANO_D0 70 //these are completely arbitrary
There are a few big arrays of structs that store the overall state of everything. Here are the main ones:
### chipStatus
This stores the actual hardware layout of each of the 12 crosspoint switches, like what is physically connected where and whether that path is being used. In the code it's and array called ch[12] and it's in MatrixStateRP2040.h
In general, I use -1 to mean the path is availale to be connected to something. As the pathfinding algorithm runs, it will fill up xStatus and yStatus with the net they're connected to.
Each path is also stored as an array of structs, this also gets filled out as the pathfinding stuff runs. There are also a couple enums to store the type of path it is, which becomes important for pathfinding because they all are sort of dealt with differently. Note that chip L is kind of a special case because it's kind of the special function chip among special function chips. Most notably, it's Y pins are actually connected to the Y pins on the breadboard chips instead of the X pins like the rest of the special function chips.
This is where it stores all the info about the nets, this is filled in early on in this whole process during input parsing.
```
struct netStruct{
uint8_t number; //nets are uint8_t, nodes are int8_t
const char *name; // human readable "Net 3"
int8_t nodes[MAX_NODES] = {}; //maybe make this smaller and allow nets to just stay connected currently 64x64 is 4 Kb
int8_t bridges[MAX_NODES][2]; //either store them here or in one long array that references the net
int8_t specialFunction = -1; // store #defined number for that special function -1 for regular net
uint8_t intersections[8]; //if this net shares a node with another net, store this here. If it's a regular net, we'll need a function to just merge them into one new net. special functions can intersect though (except Power and Ground), 0x7f is a reserved empty net that nothing and intersect
int8_t doNotIntersectNodes[8]; //if the net tries to share a node with a net that contains any #defined nodes here, it won't connect and throw an error (SUPPLY to GND)
rgbColor color; //color of the net in hex
};
extern struct netStruct net[MAX_NETS];
//The first 8 nets are the Special Function Nets so they're always filled
struct netStruct net[MAX_NETS] = { //these are the special function nets that will always be made