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diff --git a/CodingReadme b/CodingReadme index 1cee94e8..54ea368e 100644 --- a/CodingReadme +++ b/CodingReadme @@ -154,6 +154,41 @@ only use one wire from such a group of connected wires. For example: log("%d\n", sigmap(a) == sigmap(b)); // will print 1 +Using the RTLIL Netlist Format +------------------------------ + +In the RTLIL netlist format the cell ports contain SigSpecs that point to the +Wires. There are no references in the other direction. This has two direct +consequences: + +(1) It is very easy to go from cells to wires but hard to go in the other way. + +(2) There is no danger in removing cells from the netlists, but removing wires +can break the netlist format when there are still references to the wire +somewhere in the netlist. + +The solution to (1) is easy: Create custom indexes that allow you to make fast +lookups for the wire-to-cell direction. You can either use existing generic +index structures to do that (such as the ModIndex class) or write your own +index. For many application it is simplest to construct a custom index. For +example: + + SigMap sigmap(module); + dict<SigBit, Cell*> sigbit_to_driver_index; + + for (auto cell : module->cells()) + for (auto &conn : cell->connections()) + if (cell->output(conn.first)) + for (auto bit : sigmap(conn.second)) + sigbit_to_driver_index[bit] = cell; + +Regarding (2): There is a general theme in Yosys that you don't remove wires +from the design. You can rename them, unconnect them, but you do not actually remove +the Wire object from the module. Instead you let the "clean" command take care +of the dangling wires. On the other hand it is safe to remove cells (as long as +you make sure this does not invalidate a custom index you are using in your code). + + Example Code ------------ |