Is there a built-in way in OSVVM to detect build failure without parsing logs?

[Amine, Adel]

Hi everyone,

I’m trying to determine whether a build/simulation has failed in OSVVM, without having to manually inspect or parse the log files.

At the moment, my approach is to parse the generated logs to infer whether the build failed or not, but this feels a bit brittle. I was wondering if OSVVM already provides an integrated mechanism, API, or status flag that allows a script to directly know whether the build or simulation failed.

In other words:

Does OSVVM expose a built-in function or result that indicates build/simulation success or failure at the script level?

Or is log parsing currently the expected/recommended approach?

Any guidance or best practices would be appreciated.
Thanks!

[Jim Lewis]

By failed, do you mean test case failed or the build process errored out for some reason? OSVVM has are controls for both of these.

From the OSVVM Settings User Guide, you will find that they are controlled by variables:

variable FailOnBuildErrors        "true"    ;# simulator command had errors
variable FailOnReportErrors       "false"   ;# yaml reports caused html failure
variable FailOnTestCaseErrors     "false"   ;# one or more test case(s) had errors

Change these settings in your OsvvmSettingsLocal.tcl. See the OSVVM Settings User Guide for details.

If you look at the proc build in OsvvmScriptsCore.tcl, you will find the following code at the end. This code shows how the variable settings work.

      #
      #  Wrap up with error handling via call backs
      #
      # Run Callbacks on Error after trying to produce all reports
      if {$BuildErrorCode != 0} {   
        CallbackOnError_Build $Path_Or_File $BuildErrMsg $LocalBuildErrorInfo 
      } 
      if {$AnalyzeErrorCount > 0 || $SimulateErrorCount > 0} {   
        CallbackOnError_Build $Path_Or_File "Failed with Analyze Errors: $AnalyzeErrorCount and/or Simulate Errors: $SimulateErrorCount" $LocalBuildErrorInfo 
      } 
      if {($ReportErrorCode != 0) || ($ScriptErrorCount != 0)} {  
        CallbackOnError_AfterBuildReports $LocalReportErrorInfo
      } 
      # Fail on Test Case Errors
      if {($::osvvm::BuildStatus ne "PASSED") && ($::osvvm::FailOnTestCaseErrors)} {
          error "Test finished with Test Case Errors"
      }
      # Fail on Report / Script Errors?
      if {($ReportYamlErrorCode != 0) || ($ReportErrorCode != 0) || ($Log2ErrorCode != 0) || ($ScriptErrorCount != 0)} {  
        # End Simulation with errors
        if {$::osvvm::FailOnReportErrors} {
          error "Test finished with either Report or Script (wave.do) errors."
        }
      } 

While these controls are enough to get the information to Tcl, it is sometimes not enough to get the errors signaled outside of your simulator – and signaled to your Continuous Integration tools. For example, if you are running Questa (or RivieraPRO) you need to run the simulation by doing:
vsim -c -do "exit -code [catch {source MyScript.tcl}]

I generally break out the steps as follows (I generally set OsvvmLibraries as an environment variable):
vsim -c -do "exit -code [catch {source $OsvvmLibraries/Scripts/StartUp.tcl ; LinkLibraryDirectory ; build RunTest.pro}]

If you are running another simulator and have to do something like this, please share what you did with the community.

[Amine, Adel]

Hi Jim,

Thanks for the detailed explanation and references to the OSVVM settings.

I’ve built a CI framework using GitHub Actions, running ModelSim on an Ubuntu runner. I’ll publish the template once the framework is complete. In my setup:

Initialize OSVVM and build the library via build.pro (example included in the template):

library osvvm_example
analyze ../src/example.vhd

Build RunAllTests.pro:

library osvvm_example

analyze ../tb/TestCtrl_e.vhd
analyze ../tb/example_tb.vhd

RunTest ../tb/example_tb_SimpleTest.vhd
RunTest ../tb/example_tb_RandomTest.vhd

End of simulation: I quit ModelSim and run checkXML.tcl to parse the XML files in both the sim_build and sim_runalltests directories. Merges to main are allowed only if the simulation passes; otherwise, they are rejected.

package require tdom

# Get arguments
set xmlFile [lindex $argv 0]
set DEBUG   [lindex $argv 1]

# Read XML file
set fh [open $xmlFile r]
set xmlData [read $fh]
close $fh

if {$DEBUG} {
    puts "\033\[33mDEBUG\033\[0m .xml file found : $xmlFile\nParsing..."
}

# Parse XML using tdom
set doc  [dom parse $xmlData]
set root [$doc documentElement]  ;# <testsuites>

# Extract attributes
set errors   [$root getAttribute errors 0]
set failures [$root getAttribute failures 0]
set skipped  [$root getAttribute skipped 0]

if {$DEBUG} {
    puts "\033\[33mDEBUG\033\[0m errors=$errors, failures=$failures, skipped=$skipped"
}

# Print results
puts ".xml File: \033\[35m$xmlFile\033\[0m"

if {$errors != 0 || $failures != 0 || $skipped != 0} {
    puts "Build: \033\[31mFAILED\033\[0m, Errors: $errors, Failures: $failures, Skipped: $skipped"
    exit 1
} else {
    puts "Build: \033\[32mPASSED\033\[0m, Errors: $errors, Failures: $failures, Skipped: $skipped"
    exit 0
}

My main question is: how can I make ModelSim exit with an error code when a test fails, so that the GitHub Actions workflow correctly marks the CI run as failed?

I’ll review my current simulation script to ensure errors are propagated correctly to the CI tool and that the OSVVM variables are set appropriately. If I run into simulator-specific issues, I’ll share the exact commands so we can discuss adjustments for proper CI signaling.

Thanks again for your guidance!

Best regards,
Amine

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