Quartus® Prime Pro Edition User Guide: Scripting

ID 683432
Date 5/02/2025
Public
Document Table of Contents

2. Tcl Scripting

You can use Tcl scripts, as an alternative to the GUI, to control the function and operation of Quartus® Prime software.

For example, you can use Tcl scripts to perform the following tasks:

  • Manage Quartus® Prime projects
  • Specify assignments and constraints
  • Compile your design
  • Perform timing analysis
  • Generate and view reports about your project

You can also use Tcl scripts to migrate a project or project settings. For example, when working with different projects targeting the same prototype or development board, you can define a Tcl script to automate pin assignments for each project, rather than entering the assignments individually in the GUI. You can automatically generate a Tcl script based on current project assignments, which simplifies transferring the assignments to another project.

The Quartus® Prime software Tcl commands follow familiar EDA industry Tcl application programming interface (API) standards for command-line options. If you encounter an error with a command argument, the Tcl interpreter includes help information showing correct usage.

This chapter includes sample Tcl scripts for automating tasks in the Quartus® Prime software, along with a complete reference of all supported Tcl commands and arguments. You can modify the example scripts for use with your own designs.