1GTKWAVE(1) Simulation Wave Viewer GTKWAVE(1)
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6 gtkwave - Visualization tool for VCD, LXT, and VZT files
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9 gtkwave [option]... [DUMPFILE] [SAVEFILE] [RCFILE]
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13 Visualization tool for VCD, LXT, LXT2, VZT, and GHW. VCD is an indus‐
14 try standard simulation dump format. LXT, LXT2, and VZT have been
15 designed specifically for use with gtkwave. GHW is the native VHDL
16 format generated by GHDL. Native dumpers exist in Icarus Verilog and
17 the open source version of VeriWell for the LXT formats so conversion
18 with vcd2lxt(1) or vcd2lxt2(1) is not necessary to take direct advan‐
19 tage of LXT with those simulators. AET2 files can also be processed
20 provided that libae2rw is available but this is only of interest to
21 people who use IBM EDA toolsets.
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24 -n,--nocli <directory name>
25 Use file requester for dumpfile name.
26 -f,--dump <filename>
28 Specify dumpfile name.
29 -o,--optimize
31 optimize VCD to LXT2. This will automatically call vcd2lxt2(1)
32 to perform the file conversion. This option is highly recom‐
33 mended with large VCD files in order to cut down on the memory
34 usage required for file viewing. Can be used in conjunction
35 with -v,--vcd.
36 -r,--rcfile <filename>
38 Specify override .gtkwaverc filename.
39 -i,--indirect <filename>
41 Specify indirect facs file name. The file contains a series of
42 regular expressions used to limit what signals can be browsed.
43 Signal names which match any of the regular expressions will be
44 viewable. Typically, indirect files are used to reduce memory
45 requirements for extremely large models containing millions of
46 facilities or to strip out top-level hierarchy clutter from
47 BugSpray models. This feature is only available with the AET2
48 loader.
49 -l,--logfile <filename>
51 Specify simulation logfile name. Multiple logfiles may be spec‐
52 ified by preceeding each with the command flag. By selecting
53 the numbers in the text widget, the marker will immediately zoom
54 to the specific time value.
55 -d,--defaultskip
57 If there is not a .gtkwaverc file in the home directory or cur‐
58 rent directory and it is not explicitly specified on the command
59 line, when this option is enabled, do not use an implicit con‐
60 figuration file and instead default to the old "whitescreen"
61 behavior.
62 -D,--dualid <which>
64 Specify multisession identifier information. The format of
65 "which" is m+nnnnnnnn where m is the session number 0 or 1 and
66 nnnnnnnn is a hexadecimal value indicating the shared memory ID
67 of an array of two gtkwave_dual_ipc_t data structures. The
68 intended use of this flag is for front ends such as twinwave(1).
69 -s,--start <time>
71 Specify start time for LXT2/VZT block skip.
72 -e,--end <time>
74 Specify end time for LXT2/VZT block skip.
75 -t,--stems <filename>
77 Specify stems file for source code annotation. This will auto‐
78 matically launch the rtlbrowse(1) helper process. See vermin(1)
79 for information on stems file generation.
80 -c,--cpu <numcpus>
82 Specify number of CPUs available for parallelizable ops (e.g.,
83 block prefetching on VZT reads).
84 -N,--nowm
86 Disable window manager for most windows. The intended use of
87 this is to be used in conjunction with the --script option, how‐
88 ever this also can be used to reparent into an alternate window
89 manager.
90 -M,--nomenus
92 Do not render menubar. This is mainly used for making a
93 restricted applet that cannot initiate file I/O on its own, how‐
94 ever it also can be used as a workaround in earlier versions of
95 GTK+ that do not handle GTKSocket/GTKPlug focus interactions
96 properly.
97 -S,--script <filename>
99 Specify GUI command script file for execution. Comments are
100 indicated by the '#' character. Lines in the script are the
101 full menu pathname including the first forward slash. Arguments
102 for an option (such as a filename) will follow with one argument
103 each on its own separate line. Menu options that bring up com‐
104 plex requesters (e.g., search) will hang in the GUI waiting for
105 user intervention. The intended use of this option is to allow
106 automated subset extraction to VCD as well as automated Post‐
107 script file generation.
108 -X,--xid <XID>
110 Specify XID of window for a GtkPlug to connect to. GTKWave does
111 not directly render to a window but instead renders into a Gtk‐
112 Plug expecting a GtkSocket at the other end. Note that there
113 are issues with accelerators working properly so menus are dis‐
114 abled in the componentized version of GTKWave when it functions
115 as a plug-in.
116 -I,--interactive
118 Specifies that "interactive" VCD mode is to be used which allows
119 a viewer to navigate a VCD trace while GTKWave is processing the
120 VCD file. When this option is used, the filename is overloaded
121 such that it is the hexadecimal value for the shared memory ID
122 of a writer. Note that the shared memory ID can be passed
123 straight from stdin by using the --vcd option; see the manpage
124 for shmidcat(1) for more details.
125 -L,--legacy
127 Specifies that the viewer should use legacy VCD mode rather than
128 the VCD recoder. Note that using legacy mode will require con‐
129 siderably more memory than the recoder and its use is discour‐
130 aged for very large traces.
131 -v,--vcd
133 Use stdin as a VCD dumpfile.
134 -V,--version
136 Display version banner then exit.
137 -h,--help
139 Display help then exit.
140 -x,--exit
142 Exit after loading trace (for loader benchmarking).
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145 ~/.gtkwaverc (see manpage gtkwaverc(5))
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149 To run this program the standard way type:
150 gtkwave dumpfile.vcd
151 Alternatively you can run it with a save file as:
153 gtkwave dumpfile.vcd dumpfile.sav
154 To run interactively using shared memory handle 0x00050003:
156 gtkwave -I 00050003 dumpfile.sav
157 Command line options are not necessary for representing the dumpfile,
159 savefile, and rcfile names. They are merely provided to allow specify‐
160 ing them out of order.
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163 AIX requires -bmaxdata:0x80000000 (-bmaxdata:0xd0000000/dsa for AIX
164 5.3) to be added to your list of compiler flags for xlc if you want
165 GTKWave to be able to access more than 256MB of virtual memory. The
166 value shown allows the VMM to use up to 2GB (3.25GB AIX5.3). This may
167 be necessary for very large traces.
168 Shift and Page operations using the wave window hscrollbar may be non‐
170 functional as you move away from the dump start for very large traces.
171 A trace that goes out to 45 billion ticks has been known to exhibit
172 this problem. This stems from using the gfloat element of the horizon‐
173 tal slider to encode the time value for the left margin. The result is
174 a loss of precision for very large values. Use the hotkeys or buttons
175 at the top of the screen if this is a problem.
176 When running under Cygwin, it is required to enable Cygserver if shared
178 memory IPC is being used. Specifically, this occurs when rtlbrowse(1)
179 is launched as a helper process. See the Cygwin documentation for more
180 information on how to enable Cygserver.
181
183 Anthony Bybell <bybell@nc.rr.com>
184
186 gtkwaverc(5) lxt2vcd(1) vcd2lxt(1) vcd2lxt2(1) vzt2vcd(1) vcd2vzt(1)
187 vermin(1) rtlbrowse(1) twinwave(1) shmidcat(1)
188Anthony Bybell 3.0.18 GTKWAVE(1)