Playing around spinal in scala console fails

[soartang]

I'm learning spinal in windows.

I downloaded the latest SpinalTemplateSbt and msys2. I'm good with compile and run, but have problems playing around spinalhdl in console. Below is my build.sbt with Eclipse Adoptium JDK 17.0.81

ThisBuild / version := "1.0"
ThisBuild / scalaVersion := "2.12.18"
ThisBuild / organization := "org.example"

val spinalVersion = "1.10.0"
val spinalCore = "com.github.spinalhdl" %% "spinalhdl-core" % spinalVersion
val spinalLib = "com.github.spinalhdl" %% "spinalhdl-lib" % spinalVersion
val spinalIdslPlugin = compilerPlugin("com.github.spinalhdl" %% "spinalhdl-idsl-plugin" % spinalVersion)
...

Below is what I typed in console. I tried msys and native windows cmd, both gave the same errors.

scala> import spinal.core._
import spinal.core._

scala> val a = Bits(8 bits)
java.lang.NullPointerException: Cannot invoke "spinal.core.GlobalData.nodeAreInferringWidth()" because the return value of "spinal.core.BitVector.globalData()" is null
  at spinal.core.BitVector.setWidth(BitVector.scala:163)
  at spinal.core.BitsFactory.Bits(Bits.scala:33)
  at spinal.core.BitsFactory.Bits$(Bits.scala:33)
  at spinal.core.package$.Bits(core.scala:35)
  ... 55 elided

I can see the results of my code immediately in console. Making it work is really helpful for new learners. Appreciate it!

[Dolu1990]

Hi,

SpinalHDL can't realy be used in console mode in this way. You have to provide a toplevel component :

SpinalVerilog(new MyTopLevel)

And have all your hardware statements in that toplevel herarchy

Reason is that SpinalHDL has a lot of hidden stuff happening under the hood which require some setup (done by the SpinalVerilog function)

[andreasWallner]

FYI in case the sbt startup time is annoying you and that's the reason why you want to use the REPL: you can just start sbt once and repeatedly run runMain, etc. in there - that makes it much quicker to use. (sorry in case you already knew)

[soartang]

FYI in case the sbt startup time is annoying you and that's the reason why you want to use the REPL: you can just start sbt once and repeatedly run runMain, etc. in there - that makes it much quicker to use. (sorry in case you already knew)

Thanks for pointing out this. Personally I prefer the console way (works like python console which I use a lot). Though '~runMain' produces immediate results, it runs the whole code and print everything all at once.

With console, it seems to be more newbie-friendly. For example, to find out the difference between 'd := a |<< c' and 'd := a << c', I can put them in console and see the difference.

[soartang]

Hi,

SpinalHDL can't realy be used in console mode in this way. You have to provide a toplevel component :

SpinalVerilog(new MyTopLevel)

And have all your hardware statements in that toplevel herarchy

Reason is that SpinalHDL has a lot of hidden stuff happening under the hood which require some setup (done by the SpinalVerilog function)

Go it. Assume I'd like to learn the difference of '##' and '@@', as a newbie, the preferable way to do so is to type the following code (Pardon me if it has errors):

val a = U"8'h5"
val b = U"8'hA"
println( a @@ b )
println( a ## b)

Is there a way?

[Dolu1990]

Personnaly, i'm using Intellij Idea and that template project :
https://github.com/SpinalHDL/SpinalTemplateSbt

Else you can use sbt to generate some verilog, see the readme of that template project.

Else you can do some one liner as :
SpinalVerilog(new Component{val a = U"8'h5"; val b = U"8'hA"}).printRtl()

But the thing is that you need your repl to have the SpinalHDL compiler plugin in. i never tried.

[soartang]

Personnaly, i'm using Intellij Idea and that template project : https://github.com/SpinalHDL/SpinalTemplateSbt

Else you can use sbt to generate some verilog, see the readme of that template project.

Else you can do some one liner as : SpinalVerilog(new Component{val a = U"8'h5"; val b = U"8'hA"}).printRtl()

But the thing is that you need your repl to have the SpinalHDL compiler plugin in. i never tried.

OK, i'll figure it out. Thank you Dolu.