First steps using VUnit

[Tobias Baumann]

Hello,

in the last few weeks I read much about VUnit and so I wanted to make
some experiences. I cloned VUnit form Github and tried to run the
example "tb_example".

But when running the run.py script, using "python run.py -v
lib.tb_example*", I get the following error message:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "run.py", line 2, in <module>
from vunit import VUnit
ImportError: No module named vunit

I tried to add the vunit path to PYTHONPATH enviroment, but this also
gives me the same error message. I'm using Python 2.7.5 but I'm an
absolutly noob (this is the first time, I ever have called python in my
console ).

So can someone give me a hint what I'm doing wrong? I read the
user_guide.md on Github page a several times, but I can't find the
missing information I need to get the example running.

Thanks a lot,
Tobias

 

[Lars Asplund]

Hi Tobias,

What is your PYTHONPATH pointing to? It should point to the top directory in which you have the vunit, vhdl, examples directories and not to the vunit directory one level down.

Regards,

Lars

 

[Lars Asplund]

Hi Tobias,

I made an addition to the user guide to make this clear. Thanks for pointing that out. Don't hesitate to get back with more questions if you have trouble with Python. Most VHDL developers have no Python experience so it's important that our documentation covers the basics to get started. Once you're up and running you really don't need that much Python skills. Making basic run scripts is a copy/paste exercise from the given examples.

Best Regards,
Lars

 

[Tobias Baumann]

Am 05.07.2015 um 09:21 schrieb Lars Asplund:

Hi Tobias,

What is your PYTHONPATH pointing to? It should point to the top directory in which you have the vunit, vhdl, examples directories and not to the vunit directory one level down.

Regards,

Lars

Hey Lars,

thanks a lot, it is working now. I tried everything except your solution.

Maybe you can add this information to the user_guide.md, then it's clear
for Python noobs how to get VUnit starting.

Best regards,
Tobias

 

[Tobias Baumann]

Am 05.07.2015 um 14:34 schrieb Lars Asplund:

Hi Tobias,

I made an addition to the user guide to make this clear. Thanks for pointing that out. Don't hesitate to get back with more questions if you have trouble with Python. Most VHDL developers have no Python experience so it's important that our documentation covers the basics to get started. Once you're up and running you really don't need that much Python skills. Making basic run scripts is a copy/paste exercise from the given examples.

Best Regards,
Lars

Hi Lars,

thanks a lot for updating the user guide. I think it contains every
information which is needed to get a first example running.

Now I'm at the point where I have a Jenkins Server which run the VUnit
regression tests on every commit. After the run I can see the JUnit
reports, so I think the beginning is done. The next step will be to run
a multiple regression test of a huge design.

I also saw on the Github page, that there is a discussion how VUnit can
be integrated better into Sigasi. When this also works smoothly, I will
setup a CI server in our firm.

Best regards,
Tobias

 

[Lars Asplund]

Hi Tobias,

Seems like you have very good progress!

You say that you have a huge design to test. Does this means that test time is an issue for you? You might have seen the -p option that allow you to run test cases in parallel on several cores. There are also discussions with other VUnit users to do load balancing between slaves using Jenkins plugins.

Btw, do you have ideas for what you want from a Sigasi integration? If so, please join the discussion here https://github.com/LarsAsplund/vunit/issues/18.

Best Regards,
Lars

 

[Lars Asplund]

Den mĺndag 6 juli 2015 kl. 16:59:17 UTC+2 skrev Tobias Baumann:

Hi Lars,

Seems like you have very good progress!


Yes, I'm a bit suprised that everything went so fast

You say that you have a huge design to test. Does this means that test time is an issue for you? You might have seen the -p option that allow you to run test cases in parallel on several cores. There are also discussions with other VUnit users to do load balancing between slaves using Jenkins plugins.

Yes test time is absolutly an issue, but this depends on my IPs. These
are mainly for video algorithm and thereore I have to simulate a
complete frame, which can't parallelize effectivly. But I can try to run
the same IP using different regression setups in parallel. I have to
find out if this is possible with my Modelsim license. If I remember
correctly there can only run one Modelsim instance at the same

Running in parallel with different setups is a good idea. Once you have that you can ask yourself if all these tests need to run with the full frame size. You can also select to run a subset of the tests on every commit and then let the rest run over night.

As you might have seen we also support GHDL to avoid that licence problem. We've had good support from the GHDL to make this happen. The updated version is yet to be released as a binary so you need to build from source.

Best Regards,
Lars

 

Hi Tobias,
I'm newbie to the jenkins use, I want to automate my vhdl tests using both modelsim and VUnit. Have you a tutorial, advice or an example that allow me start the first steps.
Thanks and Regards
Khalid