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Printing-in-Chisel.md

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Chisel provides the printf function for debugging purposes. It comes in two flavors:

Scala-style

Chisel also supports printf in a style similar to Scala's String Interpolation. Chisel provides a custom string interpolator p which can be used as follows:

val myUInt = 33.U
printf(p"myUInt = $myUInt") // myUInt = 33

Simple formatting

Other formats are available as follows:

// Hexadecimal
printf(p"myUInt = 0x${Hexadecimal(myUInt)}") // myUInt = 0x21
// Binary
printf(p"myUInt = ${Binary(myUInt)}") // myUInt = 100001
// Character
printf(p"myUInt = ${Character(myUInt)}") // myUInt = !

We recognize that the format specifiers are verbose, so we are working on a more concise syntax.

Aggregate data-types

Chisel provides default custom "pretty-printing" for Vecs and Bundles. The default printing of a Vec is similar to printing a Seq or List in Scala while printing a Bundle is similar to printing a Scala Map.

val myVec = Vec(5.U, 10.U, 13.U)
printf(p"myVec = $myVec") // myVec = Vec(5, 10, 13)

val myBundle = Wire(new Bundle {
  val foo = UInt()
  val bar = UInt()
})
myBundle.foo := 3.U
myBundle.bar := 11.U
printf(p"myBundle = $myBundle") // myBundle = Bundle(a -> 3, b -> 11)

Custom Printing

Chisel also provides the ability to specify custom printing for user-defined Bundles.

class Message extends Bundle {
  val valid = Bool()
  val addr = UInt(32.W)
  val length = UInt(4.W)
  val data = UInt(64.W)
  override def toPrintable: Printable = {
    val char = Mux(valid, 'v'.U, '-'.U)
    p"Message:\n" +
    p"  valid  : ${Character(char)}\n" +
    p"  addr   : 0x${Hexadecimal(addr)}\n" +
    p"  length : $length\n" +
    p"  data   : 0x${Hexadecimal(data)}\n"
  }
}

val myMessage = Wire(new Message)
myMessage.valid := true.B
myMessage.addr := "h1234".U
myMessage.length := 10.U
myMessage.data := "hdeadbeef".U

printf(p"$myMessage")

Which prints the following:

Message:
  valid  : v
  addr   : 0x00001234
  length : 10
  data   : 0x00000000deadbeef

Notice the use of + between p interpolated "strings". The results of p interpolation can be concatenated by using the + operator. For more information, please see the documentation

C-Style

Chisel provides printf in a similar style to its C namesake. It accepts a double-quoted format string and a variable number of arguments which will then be printed on rising clock edges. Chisel supports the following format specifiers:

Format Specifier Meaning
%d decimal number
%x hexadecimal number
%b binary number
%c 8-bit ASCII character
%% literal percent

It also supports a small set of escape characters:

Escape Character Meaning
\n newline
\t tab
\" literal double quote
\' literal single quote
\\ literal backslash

Note that single quotes do not require escaping, but are legal to escape.

Thus printf can be used in a way very similar to how it is used in C:

val myUInt = 32.U
printf("myUInt = %d", myUInt) // myUInt = 32