RE: [sv-bc] Time literal units suffixes


Subject: RE: [sv-bc] Time literal units suffixes
From: Jacobi, Dan (dan.jacobi@intel.com)
Date: Tue Jul 01 2003 - 22:09:12 PDT


Stephen,

I think we have addressed this problem in the past and resolved this in the BNF

Note that the BNF enforces the use of prentices around the time literal

Therefore if the intention was to specify a delay time of 1ns for the blocking assignment you must use prentices
     foo <= #( 1ns) - 5;

And there is no ambiguity in the following statement
     foo <= # 1 ns - 5;
which is equivalent to
     foo <= # 1 (ns - 5);

Quoting from the BNF of SV 3.1:

A.2.2.3 Delays
delay3 ::= # delay_value | # ( mintypmax_expression [ , mintypmax_expression [ , mintypmax_expression ] ] )
delay2 ::= # delay_value | # ( mintypmax_expression [ , mintypmax_expression ] )
delay_value ::=
unsigned_number
| real_number
| identifier

A.6.5 Timing control statements
delay_control ::=
# delay_value
| # ( mintypmax_expression )

BNF Notes
7) The unsigned number or fixed point number in time_literal shall not be followed by a white_space.

Thanks You
Dan Jacobi
Intel Corp.

-----Original Message-----
From: Stephen Williams [mailto:steve@icarus.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 02, 2003 12:10 AM
To: sv-bc@eda.org
Subject: [sv-bc] Time literal units suffixes

The SystemVerilog LRM defines time literals to have the format

    <digits> [ .<digits> ] (s|ms|us|ns|ps|fs|step)

So for example 1ns is a literal time. My question is whether the
units suffixes are keywords? It appears that they are *not* intended
to be keywords, but that can lead to some tricky parsing. To wit:

     foo <= # 1 ns - 5;

If the ns is not a keyword, then the lexical analyzer could detect
that "1 ns" is a time literal and absorb it as a token. Then the -5
is the valid expression that gets assigned to foo.

If the "ns" is a keyword, then this becomes an error. That would be bad.

If time literals are not implemented, then this is the same as:

     foo <= #(1) (ns - 5);

since "ns" is a valid identifier. In other words, one legal statement
before SV becomes a different legal statement after SV. That would
be *very* bad.

This may be resolved if the "ns" (or any other units suffix) shall
not have any white space between it and the number that it is
modifying. For example:

     foo <= # 1ns - 5; // -5 after 1ns
     foo <= # 1 ns - 5; // ns-5 after 1 local unit of time.

(Actually, as Verilog currently stands, the first above is valid
and is the same as #1 ns-5, because white space is not required
between the literal 1 and the identifier ns.)

This is awfully detailed, I realize, but I want to get it right,
and possibly get the LRM clarified. My vote is to require that
there be no white space between the digits and the suffix in a
time literal.

--
Steve Williams                "The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
steve at icarus.com           But I have promises to keep,
http://www.icarus.com         and lines to code before I sleep,
http://www.picturel.com       And lines to code before I sleep."



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