Project mode with CLI

[olofk]

The project mode seems quite handy for FuseSoC. My idea is to generate a project file with all required properties and then let the user open it in the GUI or use it on the command-line to generate the bitstream with just the project file as input (This is how many of the other tool backends are implemented).

I can't figure out how to use project files on the command-line though. nextpnr-ice40 --load blinky.proj just seems to load the file and then exit (also, adding --gui doesn't do anything when --load is used).

[mmicko]

Issue is addressed in #11
you can now run:
../nextpnr-ice40 --load blinky.proj --asc blinky.asc
that will generate output for you.
Or use :
../nextpnr-ice40 --load blinky.proj --gui
to get project loaded in gui

[q3k]

@olofk Would you mind verifying that this implementation is adequate for your desired workflow?

[olofk]

Sorry for the late reply. Turns out that I'm getting ERROR: Unexpected EOF in JSON file. when running nextpnr-ice40 --load blinky.proj both with and without the --gui switch

[mmicko]

@olofk this could be the case when there is no .json file at all, you would need to generate it first with blinky.sh

[olofk]

Ah, of course. Sorry. I assumed the unexpected EOF was referring to the project json file. It works as expected now. For the future it would be nice to have target frequency and output file in the project file as well, but this issue can be closed now. Thanks