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Transaction tracing in simvision

Joep Boonstra

 Hi,

I'm using OVM transaction level tracing in SV. I was wondering if I can have simvision render different types of transactions with different colors e.g. based on a transaction attribute. I know how to do it at signal level using mnemonics but I haven't succeeded doing this at transaction level. Anyone?

 -Joep

  • Hi Joep.

    I'm not aware of any colouring options for the transactions, but I can tell you another neat facility that might do even better for you.

    If you look in the signal name area of the waveform window you should see a small plus sign just left of the transaction stream's name.
    By right clicking this plus sign, you get a pop-up menu that gives you choices about what to show when the plus sign is clicked to expand the transaction stream. For example if your transactions have an attribute "direction" which takes the value "Read" or "Write", then you can select "direction" in the pop-up menu. Next you would left-click the plus sign to expand the stream, and you would see two new transaction streams - one for "Read" and one for "Write".

    There are other more advanced things you can do such as filtering the transactions, but this subject deserves more detail than I can put in a quick forum post. Try having a look in the SimVision User Guide, in the chapter "Viewing Transactions".

     

  • Thanks Stephen. I am aware of expanding fibers/streams based on attributes and I use it a lot. It's just that colors allow a more compact (and sometimes more intuitive) representation of the different transaction types in a single fiber.

    -Joep

  • Hi Joep,
    I agree that coloring transactions can also be very useful, it is complementary to the nice expanding feature explained by Stephen.
    The good news it that it is possible to color transactions in Simvision, but it is not as immediate as expanding by attribute. You need to create a TxE search for that. The transactions to be colored needs to be "accepted" by the search (use the "accept" command in the apply section), then you an use the command "set_attribute highlight color_name_or_number".
    When the result table is selected, the lines take the colors defined in the search, and the transactions in the Waveform Window are highlighted with the same colors. It can make a very nice visual effect, depending on your color choice !
    For example :
    apply {
      fiber "*::Transactions.mem_transactions"  {
        trans_type "mem_transaction" {
             if {[attribute "command"] == "READ"} {
               accept
               incr read_count
               if     {[attribute "bank"] == 0} {
                 set_attribute highlight green
               }
               if     {[attribute "bank"] == 1} {
                 set_attribute highlight purple
               }
               if     {[attribute "bank"] == 2} {
                 set_attribute highlight blue
               }
               if     {[attribute "bank"] == 3} {
                 set_attribute highlight yellow
               }
             }
             if {[attribute "command"] == "WRITE"} {
               accept
               incr write_count
               if     {[attribute "bank"] == 0} {
                 set_attribute highlight cyan
               }
               if     {[attribute "bank"] == 1} {
                 set_attribute highlight red
               }
               if     {[attribute "bank"] == 2} {
                 set_attribute highlight lightblue
               }
               if     {[attribute "bank"] == 3} {
                 set_attribute highlight pink
               }
             }
        }
      }
    }
    exit {
    }
    table {
      sort bank
      col fiber [fiber]
      col trans_type [trans_type]
      col command [attribute command]
      col bank [attribute bank]
      col items [items]
      row
      row total_read_count  $read_count
      row total_write_count $write_count
    }
    Creating such a TxE search (in "text mode") should not be too long if you take benefit of the "Browse" button to interactively create it.
    Best regards,
    Vincent

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