Creating digital buses in ADE XL: awvCreateBus

Dear folks,

I have an analog bus Q<3:0> and I'm trying to convert it to a digital bus via the awvAnalog2Digital() and awvCreateBus() commands so that I can view the numeric values.

So far I can create the bus using the GUI in the waveform viewer, but since I have a lot of buses to check, I'd like to automate this to avoid all the manual clicks after each simulation run.  To do this, I've captured the expression generated by the GUI and I use it in the ADE XL outputs table to generate the bus after each run, but I'm running into an error:

*Error* Expression awvCreateBus("Qbus" .. ) failed to evaluate. awvCreateBus does not support creation of a family bus.

Under certain conditions I am still able to plot this expression from the calculator and CIW (details below), which makes me think it should work in ADE XL outputs table as well. There is also a similar expression the cadence documentation for awvCreateBus().  Maybe someone has seen this before?  I'll include all my steps in the hopes this can lead to a clue:

------------------------

Running IC6.1.6.101 on RHEL6 x86_64:

1) Plot Q<3..0> from ADE XL, then in the Waveform Viewer (XL), I select the traces and go to Measurement -> Analog2Digital. Set the options and use "Make Bus" to create the bus.  Result looks good.

2) Right click on the bus and send the expression to ADE, which is: 

awvCreateBus("Qbus" list(awvAnalog2Digital(value(VT("/Q<3>") "CLK_EXT" 2.5) nil nil 0.6 nil "centre") awvAnalog2Digital(value(VT("/Q<2>") "CLK_EXT" 2.5) nil nil 0.6 nil "centre") awvAnalog2Digital(value(VT("/Q<1>") "CLK_EXT" 2.5) nil nil 0.6 nil "centre") awvAnalog2Digital(value(VT("/Q<0>") "CLK_EXT" 2.5) nil nil 0.6 nil "centre") ) "Hex")

3) Close waveform viewer to erase the bus and start again

4) Click evaluate in ADE XL, I get an error message in CIW:

*Error* Expression awvCreateBus("Qbus" .. ) failed to evaluate. awvCreateBus does not support creation of a family bus.

And the cell in the ADE XL results table has 'eval error'

5) If I copy-paste the expression from (2) into the calculator, and plot, I get the same error message (awvCreateBus does not support creation of a family bus)

6) If I first plot Q<0>..Q<3> into the waveform viewer using ADE XL table, then plot expression (2) using the calculator, it works!  But, no good if I have to copy-paste all of my bus expressions into the calculator on each run.

7) I tried a modified expression based on what I saw in the documentation (OCEAN reference, awvCreateBus article):

awvCreateBus("Qbus3" list(awvAnalog2Digital(v("/Q<3>" ?result "tran") nil nil 0.6 nil "centre") awvAnalog2Digital(v("/Q<2>" ?result "tran") nil nil 0.6 nil "centre") awvAnalog2Digital(v("/Q<1>" ?result "tran") nil nil 0.6 nil "centre") awvAnalog2Digital(v("/Q<0>" ?result "tran") nil nil 0.6 nil "centre")) "Hex")

- This one plots from calculator regardless if Q<3:0> are plotted already or not (an improvement)

- I can also put it into the ADE XL outputs table and click evaluate and the plot symbol comes up the results table (no 'eval error') this time (also an improvement)

- but when I double-click to plot, I get a blank waveform viewer window and no messages (error or otherwise) in the CIW

8) I can run:

plot([expression from (7)])

in the CIW and it plots the bus.  (Perhaps another clue?)

---------------------

If you have any tips, I would appreciate it very much, thanks!