Ubuntu Manpage: gtkwave - Visualization tool for VCD, LXT, LXT2, VZT, FST, and GHW files

NAME

       gtkwave - Visualization tool for VCD, LXT, LXT2, VZT, FST, and GHW files

SYNTAX

       gtkwave [option]... [DUMPFILE] [SAVEFILE] [RCFILE]

DESCRIPTION

       Visualization  tool  for  VCD,  LXT, LXT2, VZT, FST, and GHW.  VCD is an industry standard
       simulation dump format. LXT, LXT2, VZT, and FST have been designed  specifically  for  use
       with  gtkwave.   GHW is the native VHDL format generated by GHDL.  Native dumpers exist in
       Icarus Verilog and the open source version of VeriWell for the LXT formats  so  conversion
       with vcd2lxt(1) or vcd2lxt2(1) is not necessary to take direct advantage of LXT with those
       simulators.  AET2 files can also be processed provided that libae2rw is available but this
       is only of interest to people who use IBM EDA toolsets.

OPTIONS

-n,--nocli <directory name>
Use file requester for dumpfile name.

-f,--dump <filename>
Specify dumpfile name.

-F,--fastload
generate/use VCD recoder fastload files. This is similar to the -g,--giga option,
however the spill file generated is not deleted. Reloading the VCD file another
time (either through pressing the reload button or by re-invoking gtkwave at a
later time) will use this generated spill file rather than read the value change
section of the VCD file. This will speed up reloads on large files greatly as only
the variable declaration section needs to be parsed. Note that the spill file
contains the file size and modification date of the VCD file in order to detect if
it is stale and needs to be regenerated.

-o,--optimize
optimize VCD to FST. This will automatically call vcd2fst(1) to perform the file
conversion. This option is highly recommended with large VCD files in order to cut
down on the memory usage required for file viewing. Can be used in conjunction
with -v,--vcd.

-a,--save <filename>
Specify savefile name. Useful suffixes for desktop integration are .gtkw and .sav
(deprecated).

-A,--autosavename
Assume savefile is suffix modified dumpfile name (i.e., remove and replace with
".gtkw").

-r,--rcfile <filename>
Specify override .gtkwaverc filename.

-l,--logfile <filename>
Specify simulation logfile name. Multiple logfiles may be specified by preceding
each with the command flag. By selecting the numbers in the text widget, the
marker will immediately zoom to the specific time value.

-d,--defaultskip
If there is not a .gtkwaverc file in the home directory or current directory and it
is not explicitly specified on the command line, when this option is enabled, do
not use an implicit configuration file and instead default to the old "whitescreen"
behavior.

-D,--dualid <which>
Specify multisession identifier information. The format of "which" is m+nnnnnnnn
where m is the session number 0 or 1 and nnnnnnnn is a hexadecimal value indicating
the shared memory ID of an array of two gtkwave_dual_ipc_t data structures. The
intended use of this flag is for front ends such as twinwave(1).

-s,--start <time>
Specify start time for LXT2/VZT block skip.

-e,--end <time>
Specify end time for LXT2/VZT block skip.

-t,--stems <filename>
Specify stems file for source code annotation. This will automatically launch the
rtlbrowse(1) helper process. See vermin(1) for information on stems file
generation.

-c,--cpu <numcpus>
Specify number of CPUs available for parallelizable ops (e.g., block prefetching on
VZT reads).

-N,--nowm
Disable window manager for most windows. The intended use of this is to be used in
conjunction with the --script option, however this also can be used to reparent
into an alternate window manager.

-M,--nomenus
Do not render menubar. This is mainly used for making a restricted applet that
cannot initiate file I/O on its own, however it also can be used as a workaround in
earlier versions of GTK+ that do not handle GTKSocket/GTKPlug focus interactions
properly.

-S,--script <filename>
Specify Tcl command script file for execution.

-T,--tcl_init <filename>
Specify Tcl command script to be loaded on startup. Implies --wish command flag.

-W,--wish
Enable Tcl command line on stdio. All script commands can be typed in on stdin.

-R,--repscript <filename>
Specify Tcl command script for periodic execution.

-P,--repperiod <value>
Specifies delay in milliseconds between successive executions of the repscript.
Default is 500.

-X,--xid <XID>
Specify XID (in hexadecimal) of window for a GtkPlug to connect to. GTKWave does
not directly render to a window but instead renders into a GtkPlug expecting a
GtkSocket at the other end. Note that there are issues with accelerators working
properly so menus are disabled in the componentized version of GTKWave when it
functions as a plug-in.

-1,--rpcid <RPCID>
Specify RPCID of GConf session. This is a decimal value zero or greater and is the
identifier used by GConf to know what update data to listen to. This option only
works if --with-gconf was specified during ./configure.

-2,--chdir <DIRNAME>
Specify new current working directory. This is typically used in OSX to run
gtkwave if it was compiled and placed in an .app bundle. Note that if the
environment variable GTKWAVE_CHDIR is defined, the argument is a dummy argument.
This is to support OSX in that the open command has difficulty in passing spaces as
command line arguments and it is possible for pwd(1) to return spaces.

-3,--restore
Restore previous default (0) or --rpcid RPCID numbered session. This only works
for one dumpfile, savefile, rcfile, and current working directory so it has the
effect of restoring the most recently loaded file. If used in conjunction with the
--rpcid option, that option must be specified earlier in the command line than the
--restore option. If RPCID is not specified, then the default of 0 is used. This
option only works if --with-gconf was specified during ./configure.

-I,--interactive
Specifies that "interactive" VCD mode is to be used which allows a viewer to
navigate a VCD trace while GTKWave is processing the VCD file. When this option is
used, the filename is overloaded such that it is the hexadecimal value for the
shared memory ID of a writer. Note that the shared memory ID can be passed
straight from stdin by using the --vcd option; see the manpage for shmidcat(1) for
more details.

-L,--legacy
Specifies that the viewer should use legacy VCD mode rather than the VCD recoder.
Note that using legacy mode will require considerably more memory than the recoder
and its use is discouraged for very large traces.

-g,--giga
Specifies that the viewer should use gigabyte mempacking when recoding (possibly
slower). This is equivalent to setting the vlist_spill and vlist_prepack flags in
the rc file.

-C,--comphier
Specifies that the viewer should use compressed hierarchy names when loading the
dumpfile (available for VCD recoder, LXT, LXT2, and VZT). This will use less
memory at the expense of compression/decompression delay.

-v,--vcd
Use stdin as a VCD dumpfile.

-O,--output <filename>
Specify filename for stdout/stderr redirect. To disable messages to the console,
use /dev/null as the filename.

-z,--slider-zoom
Enable slider stretch zoom for the horizontal time slider. Clicking then dragging
the very left or right edge of the slider can be used to provide fine-grained real-
time zooming.

-V,--version
Display version banner then exit.

-h,--help
Display help then exit.

-x,--exit
Exit after loading trace (for loader benchmarking).

FILES

       ~/.gtkwaverc (see manpage gtkwaverc(5))

EXAMPLES

       To run this program the standard way type:
              gtkwave dumpfile.vcd

       Alternatively you can run it with a save file as:
              gtkwave dumpfile.vcd dumpfile.gtkw

       To run interactively using shared memory handle 0x00050003:
              gtkwave -I 00050003 dumpfile.gtkw

       To pick up a dumpfile automatically from a save file (e.g., when launching from an icon):
              gtkwave --save dumpfile.gtkw

       To run from the app bundle gtkwave.app in OSX using /bin/sh:
              GTKWAVE_CHDIR=`pwd`;export GTKWAVE_CHDIR;open -n -W -a gtkwave --args --chdir dummy
              --dump des.vzt --save des.gtkw

       Alternatively, run the following Perl script gtkwave.app/Contents/Resources/bin/gtkwave to
       process command line arguments from OSX shell scripts.

       Note  that  to pass non-flag items which start with a dash, that it is required to specify
       -- in order to turn off flag parsing.  A second -- will disable parsing of  any  following
       arguments   such   that   they  can  be  passed  on  to  Tcl  scripts  and  retrieved  via
       gtkwave::getArgv.

       Command line options are not necessary for representing the dumpfile, savefile, and rcfile
       names.  They are merely provided to allow specifying them out of order.

BUGS

       AIX  requires   -bmaxdata:0x80000000 (-bmaxdata:0xd0000000/dsa for AIX 5.3) to be added to
       your list of compiler flags for xlc if you want GTKWave to be able  to  access  more  than
       256MB  of virtual memory. The value shown allows the VMM to use up to 2GB (3.25GB AIX5.3).
       This may be necessary for very large traces.

       Shift and Page operations using the wave window hscrollbar may  be  nonfunctional  as  you
       move  away  from the dump start for very large traces. A trace that goes out to 45 billion
       ticks has been known to exhibit this problem. This stems from using the gfloat element  of
       the  horizontal  slider to encode the time value for the left margin. The result is a loss
       of precision for very large values. Use the hotkeys or buttons at the top of the screen if
       this is a problem.

       When  running  under  Cygwin,  it  is required to enable Cygserver if shared memory IPC is
       being used.  Specifically, this occurs when rtlbrowse(1) is launched as a helper  process.
       See the Cygwin documentation for more information on how to enable Cygserver.

AUTHORS

       Anthony Bybell <bybell@rocketmail.com>