Specman e: define-as-computed macro error

Question

I have multiple identical constrains on lists of uint in my verification environment. I wrote a macro so I would able to write only once the constrains and it will extend them to all other lists. For example, I would like to write:

data_delay          : list of uint;
req_delay           : list of uint;

keep for each in [data_delay, req_delay] {
    soft it == select {
        1   : [0];      -- Back to back
        5   : [1..5];   -- Short delay
        2   : [5..12];  -- Medium delay
        1   : [13..40]; -- Long delay
    };
};

and the macro will duplicate the constrains for both lists data_delay and req_delay. The macro I've wrote is:

define <multi_keep_for'statement> "keep for each in \[<detr'name>,...\] (<MEMBERS>{<struct_member>;...})" as computed {
    for each in <detr'names> do {
        result = appendf("%s keep for each in %s %s", result, it, <MEMBERS>);
    };
};

But I get the compilation error:

The type of 'data_delay' is 'list of uint', while expecting a numeric type

I don't understand the problem - I've used <detr'name> it should represent the name of a variable not a numeric type.. Do you understand the problem? Thank you for any help

Have you tried printing "result" so you see how your macro expands? — Thorsten, Apr 23 '18 at 09:12
Halona, I really like this macro of yours and would like to share it with other people. Can you please contact me offline? — user3467290, Apr 27 '18 at 05:25

Yuri Tsoglin · Accepted Answer · 2018-04-23T10:47:24.247

You have two mistakes in the macro. First - it should be <struct_member> and not <statement>. Second - you have a missing semicolon between items in the result, it needs to be:

result = appendf("%s; keep for each in %s %s", result, it, <MEMBERS>);

It seems that after these two corrections, the macro works just fine.

The error you got was because the macro wasn't invoked at all (if you try to load exactly the same code without the macro, you would get the same error).

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 23 '18 at 09:14

1

As you want to take the block unmodified in your expanded code, you can use "keep for each in \[<detr'name>,...\] <block>" as the match expression. Then use <block> in your append statement.

answered Apr 23 '18 at 09:14

Thorsten

710
8
17

In fact, strictly speaking, neither `` nor `{;...}` are correct here, because it's a block of constraints rather than actions (by definition, `` represents a block of actions) or struct members. Since there is no predefined syntactic name for constraints, we could have used `{;...}`. However, luckily (in this case), Specman isn't strict in this respect, so any of these works. – Yuri Tsoglin Apr 23 '18 at 10:42
Anyhow, using `` wouldn't solve the original problem. – Yuri Tsoglin Apr 23 '18 at 10:43

Specman e: define-as-computed macro error

2 Answers2