FLI tracing

The foreign interface tracing feature is available for tracing user foreign language calls made to the MTI VHDL FLI. Foreign interface tracing creates two kinds of traces: a human-readable log of what functions were called, the value of the arguments, and the results returned; and a set of C-language files to replay what the foreign interface side did.

The purpose of tracing files

The purpose of the logfile is to aid you in debugging FLI code. The primary purpose of the replay facility is to send the replay file to MTI support for debugging co-simulation problems, or debugging FLI problems for which it is impractical to send the FLI code. MTI would still require a copy of the VHDL/Verilog part of the design to actually execute a replay, but many problems can be resolved with the trace only.

Invoking a trace

To invoke the trace, call vsim (see ModelSim Command Reference) with the
-trace_foreign option:

Syntax

vsim  

   -trace_foreign <action> [-tag <name>]

Arguments

<action>  

   Specifies one of the following actions:


   


  

  

    
 
Value
    
 
Action
    
 
Result
  
  

    
 
1
    
 
create log only
    
 
writes a local file called "mti_trace_<tag>"
  
  

    
 
2
    
 
create replay only
    
 
writes local files called "mti_data_<tag>.c", "mti_init_<tag>.c", "mti_replay_<tag>.c" and "mti_top_<tag>.c"
  
  

    
 
3
    
 
create both log and replay
    
 


  







-tag <name> 

   Used to give distinct file names for multiple traces. Optional.

Examples

vsim -trace_foreign 1 mydesign 

   Creates a logfile.

vsim -trace_foreign 3 mydesign 

   Creates both a logfile and a set of replay files.

vsim -trace_foreign 1 -tag 2 mydesign 

   Creates a logfile with a tag of "2".

The tracing operations will provide tracing during all user foreign code-calls, including VHDL foreign process callbacks and Verilog VCL callbacks. The miscellaneous VHDL callbacks (LoadComplete, Restart, Quit, EnvChanged, SimStatus, Save and Restore) are traced during execution but not explicitly identified as being from a callback function.

Note: Tracing does not work across checkpoint/restore operations.

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