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I have two watchers that are identical, but watching different
interfaces.

I would like to obtain the instancename of the current
entity/architecture so that I can print it out in an error message.

I know there is a `instancename as an attribute. So I could create my
watcher and pass as a signal port to it, it's instancename. But that's
dumb.

I could also create a signal inside of the watcher and find the
'path_name to it and parse it. but that's dumb.

what I want is the equivalent of the "this" pointer in C++:

this'instancename -- I want the instance name of the current
architecture that I am sitting in.

Is there some special VHDL construct to reference the current
architecture/entity?

Thanks!
- -eric

"Eric Peers" <> wrote in message
news: om...
> I have two watchers that are identical, but watching different
> interfaces.
>
> I would like to obtain the instancename of the current
> entity/architecture so that I can print it out in an error message.
>
> I know there is a `instancename as an attribute. So I could create
my
> watcher and pass as a signal port to it, it's instancename. But
that's
> dumb.
>
> I could also create a signal inside of the watcher and find the
> 'path_name to it and parse it. but that's dumb.
>
> what I want is the equivalent of the "this" pointer in C++:
>
> this'instancename -- I want the instance name of the current
> architecture that I am sitting in.
>
> Is there some special VHDL construct to reference the current
> architecture/entity?
>

Can't you just use

A'INSTANCE_NAME

where A is the architecture name? Or are you referring specifically
to the label of a component instance?

Alan


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views of Doulos Ltd., unless specifically stated.

(Eric Peers) wrote in message news:<. com>...
> I have two watchers that are identical, but watching different
> interfaces.
>
> I would like to obtain the instancename of the current
> entity/architecture so that I can print it out in an error message.
>
> I know there is a `instancename as an attribute. So I could create my
> watcher and pass as a signal port to it, it's instancename. But that's
> dumb.

Yes, but 'instance_name (and its variants 'simple_name and 'path_name)
don't have to be used like that. Suppose you have...

entity E is ....
end;
architecture A of E is ....
...
begin
...
assert <all_is_well>
report "Failure in " & E'instance_name;
...
end;

you will get what you want.

Note, though, that "report" and "assert" messages include this
information anyway (along with the value of simulation time,
which is also very handy). So maybe you don't need to
specify this at all.
--
Jonathan Bromley