pre and post-build options

[Intaris]

When I build a new bitfile for my project, I sometimes (shock horror) make mistakes and bring the whole house of cards crashing down.

In situations like that, I would love to have the last version of the bitfile available for re-testing.  Ideally, I could specify a pre- and post-build option for my compilation where I can define my own automatic re-naming and archiving scheme so that I no longer need to do painful re-compiles for reverting my code.

I am aware that this probably applies to more than FPGA but here the compilationt imes are more prohibitive and I feel the need is larger.

[crossrulz]

I have to say it, but could you come up with another situation?  Your current example can be solved with simple Source Code Control.

[Intaris]

I don't check in every compile I make of FPGA code.  I don't know why anyone would do that.  I'm talking about iterative debugging where multiple compiles are required before testing is successful.  Checking in bitfles which don't function is not how we operate in our office.

[raphschru]

I'm bringing this idea back to life, as I think there are lots of situations where pre/post-build actions could be useful for FPGA.

For example, as suggested here: https://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW/Populate-FPGA-array-with-values/m-p/4145330#M1195362

I have a large array of coefficients that I want to load from a file, then populate an array constant with it. I have a script to do it, now I would like to automatically run it before compiling the bitfile.

I already had another situation where I made a tool to auto-generate code in case structures based on some specification given by the developer. If however the developer forgets to run it before compiling, the FPGA VI won't work properly as necessary code has not been generated.

More generally, I think scripting for FPGA is way underrated. As FPGA code is quite often tedious and redundant to create (because of the lack of type genericity), scripting has a great potential here. Allowing to run pre/post-build actions for FPGA bitfiles would surely take FPGA scripting to the next level !