A few questios about Hal pins

Hello everyone , i've been reading the basic hal reference , I would like you to help me to understand it better.

As far as i know the parallel port inputs are hal output pins and the port outputs are hal input pins.

When reading the manual i got confused with the following example :

# signal source destination destination
net xStep stepgen.0.out => parport.0.pin-02-out parport.0.pin-08-out

in my opinion the source (stepgen.0.out) connects to parallel port pin 02 and 08 (to move a stepper motor) and it should be like this:

net xStep stepgen.0.out => parport.0.pin-02-in parport.0.pin-08-in




I don´t know why destination pins are parport.0.pin-0X-out in the example.

Many thanks in advance for your reply

The pin names reflect the ultimate destination (a parallel port output pin in this case)
but the parallel port output pin is an "IN" pin from the hal side

xStep stepgen.0.out --> parport.0.pin-02-out parport.0.pin-08-out --> physical pin

Note that parport.0.pin-02-out parport.0.pin-08-out is a input on the hal side but an output on the
physical side

sorry for the dummy question but, what do you mean with "an input on the hal side"

For example: parport.0.pin-02-out parport.0.pin-08-out

Is a hal input pin (that is, a pin that accepts a signal rather that provides a signal )

the physical step pin is of course an output

It is nice to see this sort of thing discussed with good explanations of how the hal file is constructed and the work flow through it.
I have read and reread through most of the manuals and still find it very confusing but I am getting there slowly.

Thank you