Re: CFGs vs. "declare variable before use"

Chris F Clark <cfc@shell01.TheWorld.com>
2 Jun 2005 15:02:56 -0400

          From comp.compilers

Related articles
[2 earlier articles]
Re: CFGs vs. "declare variable before use" mefrill@yandex.ru (mefrill) (2005-05-28)
Re: CFGs vs. "declare variable before use" torbenm@diku.dk (2005-05-28)
Re: CFGs vs. "declare variable before use" cfc@shell01.TheWorld.com (Chris F Clark) (2005-05-28)
Re: CFGs vs. "declare variable before use" torbenm@diku.dk (2005-05-31)
Re: CFGs vs. "declare variable before use" gah@ugcs.caltech.edu (glen herrmannsfeldt) (2005-05-31)
Re: CFGs vs. "declare variable before use" devriese@cs.tcd.ie (Edsko de Vries) (2005-06-02)
Re: CFGs vs. "declare variable before use" cfc@shell01.TheWorld.com (Chris F Clark) (2005-06-02)
Re: CFGs vs. "declare variable before use" gah@ugcs.caltech.edu (glen herrmannsfeldt) (2005-06-04)
Re: CFGs vs. "declare variable before use" mefrill@yandex.ru (mefrill) (2005-06-04)
Re: CFGs vs. "declare variable before use" mittra@juno.com (Swapnajit Mittra) (2005-06-08)
Re: CFGs vs. "declare variable before use" sharp@cadence.com (2005-06-08)
| List of all articles for this month |

From: Chris F Clark <cfc@shell01.TheWorld.com>
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Date: 2 Jun 2005 15:02:56 -0400
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
References: 05-05-216 05-05-221 05-05-231
Keywords: parse, design
Posted-Date: 02 Jun 2005 15:02:56 EDT

glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> writes:


> It seems that verilog is one language that doesn't require a variable
> to be declared before it is used.


The actual rules about when variables must be declared are quite
convoluted in Verilog. Some statements implicitly cause declarations
of the referenced variables if they weren't already declared, others
don't. However, if a variable is declared, it must be declared
"lexically" before it is used (that is the declaration must appear in
the source text before the use).


The essential problem is the Verilog has several roles to play. One
is a language written by humans to model circuit designs. Another use
of Verilog is as a "netlisting" language, that is a language to
capture the low level connections within a circuit. Netlists are
often machine generated programs. It is convenient to make such
netlists, not have to worry about "declarations" as it saves a pass in
the netlist creation program. As such, Verilog is one of the few
languages that is designed with machine generated code as one of its
primary formats.


Hope this helps,
-Chris


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