[Question] Managing component dependencies and more

[pidgeon777]

[Question] Managing component dependencies and more

[suoto]

(1) You can look at what the dependencies are by hovering over the entity name (maybe not the best way to report but still).

If ENT_A defines a component called ENT_B and instantiates the component (e.g., label : ent_b), then ENT_B.vhd is not a dependency, so its contents don't really matter. If you instantiate ENT_B explicitly (e.g., label : entity work.ent), then ENT_B will be compiled before ENT_A and errors and/or warnings from ENT_B should be displayed when compiling ENT_A as well.

Components can be bound after the compilation phase, but since HDL Checker will only compile sources, the component not bound warning won't show up at all.

(2) HDL Checker only cares about names, as long as a target file's dependencies name matches foo, the file that defines foo will be compiled before the target file. In this case, the list of warnings/errors for the target file will also include warnings/errors from compiling foo.

(3) It should compile in the correct order. It will parse some VHDL clauses like use <library>.<design_unit> to search for packages and contexts, label : entity <library>.<entity_name> to search for entities and package body <name> to search for package definitions. (The tool will query the compiler for what's built-in -- usually IEEE libraries, Xilinx precompiled libraries, etc --, so those will be ignored.)

You don't need to specify libraries for all sources, the tool will try to guess which library a source should be compiled on based on how the design units it defines are used. For example, if ent_a.vhd defines an entity called ent_a and the testbench instantiates it as <label> : entity some_library.ent_a, then ent_a.vhd should be compiled into some_library. If ent_a is instantiated in different libraries, the tool will pick the most common one and issue a dependency not unique warning listing the offending files.

I generally let HDL Checker try to guess and only manually set libraries of files it got wrong.

(4) Warnings from the compilation stage are shown by default, like I explained before, things that show up at runtime or simulation time will not be show because those steps are not run at all

Please let me know if that answers your questions or if you have any further questions!