XST and TCL support?

Does XST 7.1 support TCL scripting?

I don't see any mention of it in the XST User Manual and I find the
command line mode to be very awkward performing synthesis using the GUI
or command line without a script.

I'm new to XST, and I'm looking for ways to organize my synthesis
process. By default the tool dumps all of synthesis files all over the
place, ugh. I was hoping I could have some control over all this, which
I could do it.

If anyone has any recommendations to using XST in command line I'm all
ears.

Much appreciated,
Brandon

Brandon wrote:
> Does XST 7.1 support TCL scripting?

I would imagine that it does; the Xilinx installer includes a tcl
shell.

> I don't see any mention of it in the XST User Manual and I find the
> command line mode to be very awkward performing synthesis using the GUI
> or command line without a script.
>
> I'm new to XST, and I'm looking for ways to organize my synthesis
> process. By default the tool dumps all of synthesis files all over the
> place, ugh. I was hoping I could have some control over all this, which
> I could do it.

I hate how the tools dump things all over the place, too.  Calling the
various programs from a script can help with that but it's not ideal.

> If anyone has any recommendations to using XST in command line I'm all
> ears.

The GUI is useful for initial project set-up.  Among other things, if
you look carefully you'll see the exact command line for each of the
various processes.  The GUI is also helpful when creating constraints
and for interactively driving the timing analyzer.

I've created a couple of makefiles (one for FPGAs, one for CPLDs) that
I use under cygwin to synthesize and build my chips.  "make cleanup"
gets rid of all of the excess files and directories (I found a list of
the files buried in the Xilinx docs).  It took awhile to figure out
what does what and where.  I couldn't figure out what xflow was doing,
so my makefile calls the individual programs as needed.

-a

> The GUI is useful for initial project set-up.  Among other things, if
> you look carefully you'll see the exact command line for each of the
> various processes.  The GUI is also helpful when creating constraints
> and for interactively driving the timing analyzer.

There is .cmd_log file that logs every command was run.

> I've created a couple of makefiles (one for FPGAs, one for CPLDs) that
> I use under cygwin to synthesize and build my chips.  "make cleanup"
> gets rid of all of the excess files and directories (I found a list of
> the files buried in the Xilinx docs).  It took awhile to figure out
> what does what and where.

Search for *.gfl file, which has a list of most (if not all) of the
intermediate files.

HTH,
Jim

Andy Peters schrieb:

> Brandon wrote:
> > Does XST 7.1 support TCL scripting?
>
> I would imagine that it does; the Xilinx installer includes a tcl
> shell.
>

Can anybody confirm that ISE can be run with a TCL script?

I was looking for that option and did not find anything?

I am using a Makefile now, but that is not enough, as the synthesis
tool requires its own script files. What makes it even harder is the
fact that one tool uses a different device specification format as the
other.

For example, calling the map or ngbuild tool a Spartan 3 is given as:
xc3s50-tq144-4. Where as in the synthesis script it needs to be
specified as: xc3s50-4-tq144.

Having those different files makes it really tedious to do changes.

Guenter

Hi Brandon,

> Does XST 7.1 support TCL scripting?

This doesn't help at all, but all Altera's design tools (even Altera's free
Web Edition) have TCL scripting built-in. Altera even included matching Tk
libs to build your own GUI.

Plus, the Quartus GUI will even generate a TCL file for your current project
that compiles the whole design for you. Alternatively, you can also use
some form of Make if you want.

All this is useless when targeting a Xilinx device, of course ;-)

Best regards,



Ben

Yeah. We decided to go the Xilinx route. Apparently no one thought it
would be wise to ask me what synthesis tool to license.. Now we are
stuck with XST, which I'd rather have avoided. I find it to be fairly
dumbed down...

makefiles.. ugh.. i'm running away!

I suppose I'll have to dig around the Xilinx documentation to get into
the nitty gritty details.
Thanks all.

The other solution is bras.  I was told about this yesterday.  I've
never used it, but it's a tcl build tool (like make, only not so
messy).

http://bras.berlios.de/

Other folks have said that at least it's way better than make.  It's
good for all of those EDA folk who love their tcl.

-Arlen