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olofk / fusesoc

Package manager and build abstraction tool for FPGA/ASIC development
BSD 2-Clause "Simplified" License
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Enable modelsim GUI option #207

Closed lvoudour closed 6 years ago

lvoudour commented 6 years ago

Hi, At the moment modelsim simulations are run by default in command line mode using the -c switch which is hard-coded in the run target of modelsim.py. Specifying the -gui or -i switches invsim_options of the .core file doesn't work because vsim complains that the two switches are mutually exclusive.

Removing the -c switch from the run target of modelsim.py would fix the problem (it will still run in command line by default) allowing users to start a gui simulation using vsim_options

The only problem is I don't know if this works in older versions of modelsim. I'm using the 10.5b Intel edition but I remember some older versions had different behavior.

I could make a pull request if you are fine with it

olofk commented 6 years ago

Hi,

Starting modelsim in GUI mode is something I want to support, but I see two problems with dropping -c and setting -gui in vsim_options. First, modelsim starts up in GUI mode when I drop the -c argument, which is strange since I'm also using 10.5b intel edition. Not sure what's different between our setups, but this indicates that CLI mode might break for other cores by dropping -c. The other thing is that you might want to run regression tests in CLI mode and do some debugging in GUI mode, and this will require to edit vsim_options every time you want to switch. Also in addition to that, I want to make it possible to launch all tools in GUI mode.

I have an alternative solution instead, that is done in two steps. First of all, the ModelSim Makefile should be updated to add a new run-gui target. I have already done that for the isim and xsim backends. When that is completed, it's possible to run fusesoc run --setup --target=<target> <core> to just create the project files, and then run make run-gui from the work root (e.g. build/your_core/<target>-modelsim). Then I want to add a --gui flag to FuseSoC that will call the run-gui target in the run stage of FuseSoC (or in the build stage for synthesis tools).

So I would be happy to have a PR that adds a run-gui target to the modelsim makefile (as done in isim and xsim), and I would also be happy for a PR that adds a --gui flag and the necessary logic to run supported tools in GUI mode.

olofk commented 6 years ago

ok, it was simple enough to add the run-gui target to modelsim, so that part is done now :)

lvoudour commented 6 years ago

I have an alternative solution instead, that is done in two steps. First of all, the ModelSim Makefile should be updated to add a new run-gui target. I have already done that for the isim and xsim backends. When that is completed, it's possible to run fusesoc run --setup --target= to just create the project files, and then run make run-gui from the work root (e.g. build/your_core/-modelsim). Then I want to add a --gui flag to FuseSoC that will call the run-gui target in the run stage of FuseSoC (or in the build stage for synthesis tools).

Yes that's much cleaner, just tested works like a charm

First, modelsim starts up in GUI mode when I drop the -c argument, which is strange since I'm also using 10.5b intel edition. Not sure what's different between our setups, but this indicates that CLI mode might break for other cores by dropping -c

Strange, I tested again without the -c before pulling and it doesn't invoke the gui. I think it doesn't run in gui when there's a -do 'tcl stuff' option but maybe I'm wrong and there's some option set in my modelsim.ini. Anyway no worries it's better the way you've changed it. Cheers!