Problem with to_hstring32_f

[mahdi259]

Hi
I use the following code to print program variable

-- Cls
process(clk_gen)
begin
  if rising_edge(clk_gen) then
    if (wb_cpu.stb = '1') and (wb_cpu.we = '1') and (wb_cpu.addr = x"80007764") then
      report "cls - MEM 0x" & to_hstring32_f(wb_cpu.wdata) & " -> [0x" & to_hstring32_f(wb_cpu.addr) & "]" severity note;
    end if;
  end if;
end process;

It gives me the following error. Any idea?

** Error: D:\Thesis\MicroController\Experiments\Archive\2-SynthesizedArchs-9-12\SIM\LENET5\neorv32-main\neorv32-main\sim\simple\neorv32_tb.simple.vhd(160): (vcom-1136) Unknown identifier "to_hstring32_f".
** Error: D:\Thesis\MicroController\Experiments\Archive\2-SynthesizedArchs-9-12\SIM\LENET5\neorv32-main\neorv32-main\sim\simple\neorv32_tb.simple.vhd(160): (vcom-1590) Bad expression in left operand of infix expression '&'.
** Error: D:\Thesis\MicroController\Experiments\Archive\2-SynthesizedArchs-9-12\SIM\LENET5\neorv32-main\neorv32-main\sim\simple\neorv32_tb.simple.vhd(160): (vcom-1590) Bad expression in left operand of infix expression '&'.
** Error: D:\Thesis\MicroController\Experiments\Archive\2-SynthesizedArchs-9-12\SIM\LENET5\neorv32-main\neorv32-main\sim\simple\neorv32_tb.simple.vhd(160): (vcom-1136) Unknown identifier "to_hstring32_f".
** Error: D:\Thesis\MicroController\Experiments\Archive\2-SynthesizedArchs-9-12\SIM\LENET5\neorv32-main\neorv32-main\sim\simple\neorv32_tb.simple.vhd(160): (vcom-1590) Bad expression in left operand of infix expression '&'.
** Error: D:\Thesis\MicroController\Experiments\Archive\2-SynthesizedArchs-9-12\SIM\LENET5\neorv32-main\neorv32-main\sim\simple\neorv32_tb.simple.vhd(160): Type error resolving infix expression "&" as type std.STANDARD.STRING.

[mahdi259]

It seems that should be replaced by to_hstring()

[stnolting]

It looks as if this function has fallen victim to one of the many “code cleanups”... 😅 to_hstring() is a nice (and much more powerful) alternative. However, it requires VHDL2008 which might not be available on all systems. So maybe we should add back some "std_ulogic_vector-to-string" function for simple debugging.

I may be wrong, but I think I saw a nice variation somewhere on @NikLeberg's site?! 🤔

[NikLeberg]

If a decimal number is enough, then I can offer:

signal result : std_ulogic_vector(31 downto 0);
...
report "result = " & integer'image(to_integer(unsigned(result)))

But it only prints the decimal representation an not the hexadecimal one. 🤷‍♂️

[mahdi259]

Thanks for your kind response.

[stnolting]

If a decimal number is enough, then I can offer:

Looks good! 👍

But I would prefer HEX format for debugging. 😉 Furthermore, this concept does not work if you want to "print" signals that are larger than 32-bit as VHDL's integer type is constrained to 32-bit by the system (at least for pre-VHDL08/pre-VHDL19 standards).