RE: [sv-bc] part selects on arbitrary expressions

As Shalom has already pointed out, concatenation will not work for
expressions that have a complex data type.

W.r.t. new modeling capabilities/succinctness, the main benefit this
feature will provide is the ability to perform arbitrary slicing in a
single expression tree, without introducing artificial variables and
assignments. As of now, Verilog expressions provide means to express
very complex logic, but for some reason they do not provide a way to do
a simple slicing operation of another expression.

--Yulik.

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael (Mac) McNamara [mailto:mcnamara@cadence.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2007 2:25 AM
To: Steven Sharp; Arturo.Salz@synopsys.com; Bresticker, Shalom; Feldman,
Yulik; sv-bc@eda.org
Subject: RE: [sv-bc] part selects on arbitrary expressions

I agree that this enhancement adds no new modeling capability - it just
delivers some succinctness. (most every language feature after turing's
Mark and Advance commands are of this form) 

To restate my point succinctly, were folks to still wish to deliver this
enhancement, I would guide to using the concatenate rather than defining
a new meaning for a parentetical grouping.

-mac

mcnamara@cadence.com

 -----Original Message-----
From: 	Steven Sharp [mailto:sharp]
Sent:	Tuesday, March 06, 2007 04:02 PM Pacific Standard Time
To:	Steven Sharp; Arturo.Salz@synopsys.com;
shalom.bresticker@intel.com; yulik.feldman@intel.com; sv-bc@eda.org;
Michael (Mac) McNamara
Subject:	RE: [sv-bc] part selects on arbitrary expressions


>Are you suggesting we dispense with slicing altogether? 
>Shifting, masking, and casting are tedious and error prone.

Based on the discussion, there are complex issues that would
need to be resolved before allowing part selects on arbitrary
expressions.  Given that there is already a way of getting the
proposed functionality, I don't think the effort to work this
out is a high priority at this time.

In procedural code, an intermediate variable can be used to
hold the expression value and allow a part select.  In any
situation where an intermediate variable is not a possibility,
the functionality can still be obtained with a shift and cast.

Steven Sharp
sharp@cadence.com

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