Intel® Quartus® Prime Standard Edition User Guide: Scripting

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ID 683325
Date 9/24/2018
Public
Document Table of Contents
Document Table of Contents x
1. Command Line Scripting 2. Tcl Scripting A. Intel® Quartus® Prime Standard Edition User Guides
1. Command Line Scripting x
1.1. Benefits of Command-Line Executables 1.2. Introductory Example 1.3. Command-Line Scripting Help 1.4. Project Settings with Command-Line Options 1.5. Compilation with quartus_sh --flow 1.6. Text-Based Report Files 1.7. Using Command-Line Executables in Scripts 1.8. Common Scripting Examples 1.9. The QFlow Script 1.10. Document Revision History
1.4. Project Settings with Command-Line Options x
1.4.1. Option Precedence
1.8. Common Scripting Examples x
1.8.1. Create a Project and Apply Constraints 1.8.2. Check Design File Syntax 1.8.3. Create a Project and Synthesize a Netlist Using Netlist Optimizations 1.8.4. Archive and Restore Projects 1.8.5. Perform I/O Assignment Analysis 1.8.6. Update Memory Contents Without Recompiling 1.8.7. Create a Compressed Configuration File 1.8.8. Fit a Design as Quickly as Possible 1.8.9. Fit a Design Using Multiple Seeds
2. Tcl Scripting x
2.1. Tool Command Language 2.2. Intel® Quartus® Prime Tcl Packages 2.3. Intel® Quartus® Prime Tcl API Help 2.4. End-to-End Design Flows 2.5. Creating Projects and Making Assignments 2.6. Compiling Designs 2.7. Reporting 2.8. Timing Analysis 2.9. Automating Script Execution 2.10. Other Scripting Features 2.11. The Intel® Quartus® Prime Tcl Shell in Interactive Mode Example 2.12. The tclsh Shell 2.13. Tcl Scripting Basics 2.14. Tcl Scripting Revision History
2.2. Intel® Quartus® Prime Tcl Packages x
2.2.1. Loading Packages
2.3. Intel® Quartus® Prime Tcl API Help x
2.3.1. Command-Line Options 2.3.2. The Intel® Quartus® Prime Tcl Console Window
2.3.1. Command-Line Options x
2.3.1.1. Run a Tcl Script 2.3.1.2. Interactive Shell Mode 2.3.1.3. Evaluate as Tcl
2.6. Compiling Designs x
2.6.1. The flow Package 2.6.2. Compile All Revisions
2.7. Reporting x
2.7.1. Saving Report Data in csv Format
2.9. Automating Script Execution x
2.9.1. Execution Example 2.9.2. Controlling Processing 2.9.3. Displaying Messages
2.10. Other Scripting Features x
2.10.1. Natural Bus Naming 2.10.2. Short Option Names 2.10.3. Collection Commands 2.10.4. The post_message Command 2.10.5. Accessing Command-Line Arguments 2.10.6. The quartus() Array
2.10.3. Collection Commands x
2.10.3.1. The foreach_in_collection Command 2.10.3.2. The get_collection_size Command
2.10.5. Accessing Command-Line Arguments x
2.10.5.1. The cmdline Package
2.13. Tcl Scripting Basics x
2.13.1. Hello World Example 2.13.2. Variables 2.13.3. Substitutions 2.13.4. Arithmetic 2.13.5. Lists 2.13.6. Arrays 2.13.7. Control Structures 2.13.8. Procedures 2.13.9. File I/O 2.13.10. Syntax and Comments 2.13.11. External References
2.13.3. Substitutions x
2.13.3.1. Variable Value Substitution 2.13.3.2. Nested Command Substitution 2.13.3.3. Backslash Substitution
1. Command Line Scripting
2. Tcl Scripting
A. Intel® Quartus® Prime Standard Edition User Guides

2.4. End-to-End Design Flows

You can use Tcl scripts to control all aspects of the design flow, including controlling other software, when the other software also includes a scripting interface.

Typically, EDA tools include their own script interpreters that extend core language functionality with tool-specific commands. For example, the Intel® Quartus® Prime Tcl interpreter supports all core Tcl commands, and adds numerous commands specific to the Intel® Quartus® Prime software. You can include commands in one Tcl script to run another script, which allows you to combine or chain together scripts to control different tools. Because scripts for different tools must be executed with different Tcl interpreters, it is difficult to pass information between the scripts unless one script writes information into a file and another script reads it.

Within the Intel® Quartus® Prime software, you can perform many different operations in a design flow (such as synthesis, fitting, and timing analysis) from a single script, making it easy to maintain global state information and pass data between the operations. However, there are some limitations on the operations you can perform in a single script due to the various packages supported by each executable.

There are no limitations on running flows from any executable. Flows include operations found in

Processing > Start in the Intel® Quartus® Prime GUI, and are also documented as options for the execute_flow Tcl command. If you can make settings in the Intel® Quartus® Prime software and run a flow to get your desired result, you can make the same settings and run the same flow in a Tcl script.

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