Verilog gate level parser - parsing

I want to parse Verilog gate level code and store the data in a data structure (ex. graph).
Then I want to do something on the gates in C/C++ and output a corresponding Verilog file.
(I would like to build one program which input and output are Verilog gate level code)
(input.v => myProgram => output.v)
If there is any library or open source code to do so?
I found that it can be done by Flex and Bison but I have no idea how to use Flex and Bison.

There was a similar question a few days ago about doing this in ruby, in which I pointed to my Verilog parser gem. Not sure if it is robust enough for you though, would love feedback, bug reports, feature requests.
There are perl verilog parsers out there but I have not used any of them directly and avoid perl, hopefully others can add info about other parsers.

I have used Verilog-Perl successfully to parse Verilog code. It is well-maintained: it even supports the recent SystemVerilog extensions.

Yosys (https://github.com/cliffordwolf/yosys) is a framework for Verilog Synthesis written in C++. Yosys is still under construction but if you only want to read and write gate-level netlists it can do what you need..
PS: A reference manual (that also covers the C++ APIs) is on the way. I've written ~100 pages already, but can't publish it before I've finished my BSc. thesis (another month or so).

Related

What makes libadalang special?

I have been reading about libadalang 1 2 and I am very impressed by it. However, I was wondering if this technique has already been used and another language supports a library for syntactically and semantically analyzing its code. Is this a unique approach?
C and C++: libclang "The C Interface to Clang provides a relatively small API that exposes facilities for parsing source code into an abstract syntax tree (AST), loading already-parsed ASTs, traversing the AST, associating physical source locations with elements within the AST, and other facilities that support Clang-based development tools." (See libtooling for a C++ API)
Python: See the ast module in the Python Language Services section of the Python Library manual. (The other modules can be useful, as well.)
Javascript: The ongoing ESTree effort is attempting to standardize parsing services over different Javascript engines.
C# and Visual Basic: See the .NET Compiler Platform ("Roslyn").
I'm sure there are lots more; those ones just came off the top of my head.
For a practical and theoretical grounding, you should definitely (re)visit the classical textbook Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs by Abelson & Sussman (1st edition 1985, 2nd edition 1996), which helped popularise the idea of Metacircular Interpretation -- that is, interpreting a computer program as a formal datastructure which can be interpreted (or otherwise analysed) programmatically.
You can see "libadalang" as ASIS Mark II. AdaCore seems to be attempting to rethink ASIS in a way that will support both what ASIS already can do, and more lightweight operations, where you don't require the source to compile, to provide an analysis of it.
Hopefully the final API will be nicer than that of ASIS.
So no, it is not a unique approach. It has already been done for Ada. (But I'm not aware of similar libraries for other languages.)

Cross-platform parser development - What are the options?

I'm currently working on a project that makes use of a custom language with a simple context-free grammar.
Due to the project's characteristics the same language will have to be used on several platforms, especially mobile ones. Currently, I'm using my small hand-written Java parser (for the Android platform). Soon, I'll have to write basically the same parser for JavaScript and later possibly also for C# (Windows Phone) and Objective C (iOS). There is an additional chance that I'll also have to write it for PHP.
My question is: What options are there to simplify the parser development process? Do I really have to write basically the same parser for each platform or is there a less work-intensive way?
From a development process point of view the best alternative would enable me to write a grammar definition which would then automatically be compiled into a parser.
However, basically the only cross-platform parser generator I've found so far it the GOLD Parser which supports two of my target platforms (Java and C#). It would really be awesome if you could point me to other alternatives.
In case you don't know about other cross-platform compiler-compilers: Do you have hints how to structure the code towards future language extensibility?
I commend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_parser_generators to your attention: if we restrict the domain to Java and C/C++, it suggests APG, GOLD, SableCC, and SLK (amongst others) as being cross-language enough for your stated goals. (I'm also requiring that the action code be separated from the grammar rather than inline, since the latter would defeat the purpose.) If you want JavaScript as well, it looks like your choices are APG (GPL-licensed) and WaxEye (MIT-licensed).
If your language is reasonably simple then I would say to just go with whichever you think will be easiest to integrate into your build environment(s) and has a reasonable match with how you think. Unless parsing time is a huge fraction of your application's total workload, parsing speed should not be an issue -- although table size and memory usage might matter in a mobile context. If your grammar is "simple enough," (i.e. not Perl, for instance) I would expect any of those tools to work.
Have a look in Antlr, I am using it for transforming java code and it is really great. Moreover you can find different grammars here.
REx parser generator supports the required targets, except for Objective C and PHP (code generators for those might be possible). It has not yet been published as open source, though, and there is no decent documentation, just sample grammars. But there are projects that are using it successfully, e.g. xqlint. Here is a paper describing the experience from that project.

How to use Clang to obtain ASTs on the current versions?

I have been trying to obtain ASTs from Clang but I have not been successfully so far. I found a one year old question here at stack that mentions about two other ways to obtain the ast using Clang which are:
./llvmc -cc1 -ast-dump file.c
./llvmc -cc1 -ast-print file.c
On this question doxygen is mentioned and a representation where an ast is given but I am mostly looking for one on some textual form such as XML so that further analysis can be performed.
lastly there was another question here on stack about exactly XML import but it was discontinued for several reasons also mentioned.
My question thus is, which version and how can I use it from the console to obtain ast related information for a given code in C? I believe this to be a very painless one line command code like those above but the documentation index did not refer anything about ast from as much as I have read and the only one at llvmc I found was about writing an AST by hand which is not really what I am looking for.
I tried all of the commands above but they all already fail on version 2.9 and I already found out llvm changes a whole lot between each version.
Thank you.
OP says "open to other suggestions as well".
He might consider our DMS Software Reengineering Toolkit with its C Front End.
While it would be pretty easy to exhibit a C AST produced by this, it is easier to show an ObjectiveC AST [already at SO] produced by DMS using the same C front end (ObjectiveC is a dialect of C).
See https://stackoverflow.com/a/10749970/120163 DMS can produce an XML equivalent of this, too.
We don't recommend exporting trees as text, because real trees for real code are simply enormous and are poorly manipulated as text or XML objects in our experience. One usually needs machinery beyond parsing. See my discussion about Life After Parsing

Learning incremental compilation design

There are a lot of books and articles about creating compilers which do all the compilation job at a time. And what about design of incremental compilers/parsers, which are used by IDEs? I'm familiar with first class of compilers, but I have never work with the second one.
I tried to read some articles about Eclipse Java Development Tools, but they describe how to use complete infrastructure(i.e. APIs) instead of describing internal design(i.e. how it works internally).
My goal is to implement incremental compiler for my own programming language. Which books or articles would you recommend me?
This book is worth a look: Builing a Flexible Incremental Compiler Back-End.
Quote from Ch. 10 "Conclusions":
This paper has explored the design of
the back-end of an incremental
compilation system. Rather than
building a single fixed incremental
compiler, this paper has presented a
flexible framework for constructing such
systems in accordance with user needs.
I think this is what you are looking for...
Edit:
So you plan to create something that is known as a "cross compiler"?!
I started a new attempt. Until now, I can't provide the ultimate reference. If you plan such a big project, I'm sure you are an experienced programmer. Therefore it is possible, that you already know these link(s).
Compilers.net
List of certain compilers, even cross compilers (Translators). Unfortunately with some broken links, but 'Toba' is still working and has a link to its source code. May be that this can inspire you.
clang: a C language family frontend for LLVM
Ok, it's for LVVM but source is available in a SVN repository and it seems to be a front end for a compiler (translator). May be that this can inspire you as well.
I'm going to disagree with conventional wisdom on this one because most conventional wisdom makes unwritten assumptions about your goals, such as complete language designs and the need for extreme efficiency. From your question, I am assuming these goals:
learn about writing your own language
play around with your language until it looks elegant
try to emit code into another language or byte code for actual execution.
You want to build a hacking harness and a recursive descent parser.
Here is what you might want to build for a harness, using just a text based processor.
Change the code fragment (now "AT 0700 SET HALLWAY LIGHTS ON FULL")
Compile the fragment
Change the code file (now "tests.l")
Compile from file
Toggle Lexer output (now ON)
Toggle Emitter output (now ON)
Toggle Run on home hardware (now OFF)
Your command, sire?
You will probably want to write your code in Python or some other scripting language. You are optimizing your speed of play, not execution. A recursive descent parser might look like:
def cmd_at():
if next_token.type == cTIME:
num = next_num()
emit("events.setAlarm(events.DAILY, converttime(" + time[0:1] + ", "
+ time[2:] + ", func_" + num + ");")
match_token(cTIME)
match_token(LOCATION)
...
So you need to write:
A little menu for hacking.
Some lexing routines, to return different tokens for numbers, reserved words, and the like.
A bunch of logic for what your language
This approach is aimed at speeding up the cycle for hacking together the language. When you have finished this approach, then you reach for BISON, test harnesses, etc.
Making your own language can be a wonderful journey! Expect to learn. Do not expect to get rich.
I see that there is an accepted answer, but I think that some additional material could be usefully included on this page.
I read the Wikipedia article on this topic and it linked to a DDJ article from 1997:
http://www.drdobbs.com/cpp/codestore-and-incremental-c/184410345?pgno=1
The meat of the article is the first page. It explains that the code in the editor is divided into pieces that are "incorporated" into a "CodeStore" (database). The pieces are incorporated via a work queue which contains unincorporated pieces. A piece of code may be parsed and returned to the work queue multiple times, with some failure on each attempt, until it goes through successfully. The database includes dependencies between the pieces so that when the source code is edited the effects on the edited piece and other pieces can be seen and these pieces can be reprocessed.
I believe other systems approach the problem differently. Java presents different problems than C/C++ but has advantages as well, so Eclipse perhaps has a different design.

Are there any examples or documentation on using the Castalia source parser?

While I have written plenty of recursive parsers before, I have recently become interested in the Castalia Delphi Parser (why re-invent the wheel). I know this parser have been used in many projects over the years - but finding any documentation for it seems difficult.
Where exactly can I find the documentation? Or as an alternative, are there any clear cut examples on using it in a real-life parsing scenario?
The idea is to use Castalia for syntax verification of Delphi units, and (if possible) benefit in generating a node-tree of a program (with classes, their methods, parameters, result datatypes, if/then/else -- basically a full map of a unit or program). You could think of it as "half a script runtime" without actually running any code, just breaking it down into it's most fundamental aspects.
why don't you use JvInterpreterParser? it has only 2-3 unit dependencies... can be easily modified to fit your needs and you can also improve the speed, in a old test I've parsed a 80 MB file about in 6 Sec. on a Pentium 4 running # 2.8 Ghz or so...
Using the parser is described here:
http://delphiblog.twodesk.com/using-the-castalia-delphi-parser
The post also references some projects that are using the parser.
Here is another one:
https://github.com/LaKraven/MonkeyMixer

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