How to interpret a single backslash from an input file?

You’re misinterpreting what the characters actually are. When you look at the value of a string variable, it shows it using the print representation, which is valid syntax for representing the string as input. Since \ is an escape character within strings, an actual \ has to be escaped to show it in the print representation and hence it would appear as \\.

If you are expecting it to be read as in the first line, you should enter it exactly as you described in the first place - ie with \| first and then \\<2\\> later. The print representation shows that as \\| and \\\\<2\\\\> at the end. This is correct.

Assuming that you have the string read by gets in a variable called netName, try just doing:

printf(“%s\n” netName)

(apologies if the quotes are wrong - I’m typing this in a bus in Germany!). It will print correctly.

To convince you, try using parseString(netName “”) - this will split into individual characters. You will see some “\\” amongst those because it has to escape the backslash. It’s still a a single character though - if you do strlen(“\\”) it will return 1.

Hope that helps!

Andrew

Thanks for the reply, Andrew.

If you use the net name as it is: DUT.XPLL_ANA_TOP\|CLKN\\<2\\> then you are true that printf() will give you the correct name but when you try to interpret the netName (I named it as clkNetName) in xterm that will show up like this: "DUT.XPLL_ANA_TOP\\|CLKN\\\\<2\\\\>". I want this to show up like: "DUT.XPLL_ANA_TOP\|CLKN\\<2\\>"

I don't just want to print the clkNetName but want to evaluate certain expressions using that. So, the problem with incorrect interpretation of clkNetName is that xterm gives me warning saying the following:

WARNING (OCN-6054): The output 'DUT.XPLL_ANA_TOP\|CLKN\\<2\\>' you selected does not exist. Type outputs() to see the list
of available outputs or type help('v) for more information on the 'v' command.

Attaching a ss for above warning (I hope it's readable):

This is nothing to do with whether it's printed or not. Whilst it might show as "\\" the string actually only contains a single "\" and so any usage of it when passed to a function would only see that single "\".

The problem is almost certainly that the signal is not called what you think it is within the result database. What does outputs() show (that's what the message suggests you use). If outputs() produces a lot of info, try:

pcreMatchList("^DUT\\.XPLL_ANA_TOP" outputs())

which will give you any output that begins with DUT.XPLL_ANA_TOP (note, the double backslash here is to provide a single regular expression backslash to escape the dot to prevent it meaning the regex "any character").

Andrew

This is nothing to do with whether it's printed or not. Whilst it might show as "\\" the string actually only contains a single "\" and so any usage of it when passed to a function would only see that single "\".

The problem is almost certainly that the signal is not called what you think it is within the result database. What does outputs() show (that's what the message suggests you use). If outputs() produces a lot of info, try:

pcreMatchList("^DUT\\.XPLL_ANA_TOP" outputs())

which will give you any output that begins with DUT.XPLL_ANA_TOP (note, the double backslash here is to provide a single regular expression backslash to escape the dot to prevent it meaning the regex "any character").

Andrew

Yes Andrew, that's correct. The signal name in the result database looked different from what I have been entering so far. Now, I am able to do evaluations on the nets.

Thank you so much

Monika