On 12/06/2013 11:47 AM, Me wrote:
I use this environment for asic verification. So one kind of test is
to randomize every register with data. But different types of
registers have different valid data definitions. For example, one
type of register is 16 bits wide with the top 5 bits representing an
exponent, and the remaining 11 bits representing the mantissa. There
are many registers of this type. They might set a voltage, a current
limit, temperature alarm, and so on. And if the value of the voltage
is outside the range of the chip, the write to that register needs to
be rejected by the chip.
So i was envisioning a class to handle this exponent/mantissa format,
then have a method like randomValidData(). There are other register
types that 16 bit mantissa and the exponent is held in yet another
register. So randomValidData for that type of register would be
different.
A lot of testing often needs to write random but valid data to
registers. So if i have a container of instances of different
register classes, i could iterate through all registers and fill them
with valid random data.
i would do some sort of table driving here. have a collection of small
subs (or methods) that do the various tasks like generating
mantissa/exponent data or verifying stuff, etc. this may be a large
collection but each sub does one small task. then make a dispatch table
so you can access all the subs (if they are methods, then just the names
are needed). then for each register type, you assign a list of the subs
to handle it. one set for generating data and another for verifying.
there is actually very little coding here other than the subs doing the
work. then the code to do stuff is generic across ALL the register
types. it just gets the info for the given register, looks up the worker
subs it needs and calls them. there is no need for layers of objects or
complex structures. this can even handle nested stuff, if you define the
workers that way you just make each register have a nested set of keys
telling the code what to do.
this can all be done procedurally too. OO could help but it may not be
needed. i have done similar things for testing several of my modules. i
even gave a pm talk on it many moons ago.
uri
--
Uri Guttman - The Perl Hunter
The Best Perl Jobs, The Best Perl Hackers
http://PerlHunter.com
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