[savant-devel] Newbie: new backend plugin

[Dale E. Martin]

> I've played a while with savant sources and I found them useful for my
> Ph.D. work. I'd like to create a tool to help designers to write designs
> for dynamic reconfiguration.

Cool.
 
> I already played with savant-2.0-pre031216. I tried to create my layer
> called IIRPart. I was able to follow your example from Savant
> Programmer's Manual.

The codebase has changed a _bunch_ since that version.  I see further down
you've gone to CVS, which is probably the right thing for you to do.

Also check out section 1.2 of the FAQ:
http://www.cliftonlabs.com/Savant-FAQ.html

There is some (rudimentary) documentation on the new extension mechanism.

> Unfortunately I experience quite big difficulties to understand the tree
> that is created during run-time. In fact, I don't know where to start.

I'm not sure what to suggest on this front.  You could process a small
model and then step through "publish_vhdl" and look at the structure of the
tree that way.
 
> I just downloaded and installed CVS version of SAVANT. I'm going to
> further investigate how to export component instances from a .vhdl file
> in an external file. (I will put a .vhdl file with instances in, and I'd
> like to know what instances are there, their names, connections etc.).
> The output of such tool I'd like to visualize and allow the designer to
> decide what should stay static and what will be dynamically
> reconfigurable.

I see. 

> A second phase should be restructuralization of the input .vhdl code in 
> a new design based on a constraints provided by the designer with the 
> knowledge of the first phase.

> Any help for my effort will be appreciated.

If I was you, I'd build the example file you describe and then walk through
"publish_vhdl" inside of gdb or ddd and watch it work.  It will give you a
feel for how the tree is laid out.

Take care,
     Dale
-- 
Dale E. Martin, Clifton Labs, Inc.
Senior Computer Engineer
dmartin at cliftonlabs.com
http://www.cliftonlabs.com
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