Return a string from user-defined function in VerilogA

Hi,

I am trying to define a custom function (analog function) that takes a string input and returns a string;

analog function integer foo;

   input strin;

   output strout;

   string strin; 

    string strout;

  begin 

       strout = {strin,strin};

end

endfunction

string output_str;

analog begin

 @(initial_step) 

      foo("bar", output_str);

end

This yields an error during similar to:

ERROR (VACOMP-1008): Cannot compile ahdlcmi module library. Check the log file /…./…/Sim/… … /adexl/results/data/Interactive.33/sharedData/CDS/ahdl/input.ahdlSimDB/24626ad5616da27e0a69c18e90226eba.bias_autotrim.ahdlcmi/Linux-64//..//ahdlcmi.out for details. Contact your Cadence Customer Support representative with the netlist, log files, behavioral model files, and any other information that can help identify the problem.

    ERROR (SFE-91): Cannot run the simulation because an AHDL compilation error occurred. Check the VACOMP error message above and correct the syntax error in the Verilog-A file. Next, rerun the simulation.

Investigating the ahdlcmi.out file, the first encountered error is:

aslDevAssignStringC(2, &stateDataStruct->input_str_144,(char*)stateDataStruct->input_str_152, funcModeParam);

                        ^

In file included from test.c:24:0:

/mnt/ed/ct/lnx/rh/53/64/…/spectre/tools.lnx86/spectre/ahdlcmi/include/ahdlDevLibGlobal.h:2390:32: note: expected 'char *' but argument is of type 'long int *'

 ASL_FUNC_DECL_START extern int aslDevAssignStringC( int, char *, char *, struct ahdlFuncModeParam * );

I guess this is some intermediate compilation message (VerilogA->C), but I couldn’t get further investigating it.

Interestingly, removing the strout output parameter from the function and leaving only an input string works just fine.

What could be a possible solution to this issue?

Cheers,

Dimitar