Properties

SystemRDL Properties

All built-in and user-defined SystemRDL component properties can be accessed using the Node.get_property() interface.

If a property was not explicitly set in the RDL source, its default or implied value will be returned. When using the get_property() interface, any instance references are converted to their representative Node objects.

Implied Property Values

The SystemRDL language describes numerous properties. Many of them are very closely interrelated. Even if not explicitly assigned, some of these may inherit an implied value based on other properties. In order to simplify the designer’s job of interpreting user input, the SystemRDL compiler’s Node.get_property() method will automatically return these implied default values.

For example:

field my_field {
    sw=rw;
    rclr;
};

The above example describes a field that is cleared when software reads it. Although not explicitly set, if you were to do the following query: my_field.get_property('onread'), it would return the value OnReadType.rclr, as if the user assigned it as follows:

field my_field {
    sw=rw;
    onread = rclr;
};

Other properties that may infer a value

(This is not an exhaustive list!)

  • If not explicitly set, resetsignal may return a signal marked with field_reset in the enclosing hierarchy.

  • rclr and rset can be implied from onread and vice-versa.

  • woclr and woset can be implied from onwrite and vice-versa.

  • incrvalue and decrvalue may infer a value of 1 for counters that do not specify otherwise.

  • stickybit is true for interrupt fields unless specified otherwise.

  • accesswidth defaults to the width of the register.

  • fieldwidth and signalwidth will inherit from their field/signal instance widths respectively.

  • Boolean property pairs that imply the opposites of each-other:

    • sync and async

    • bigendian and littleendian

    • msb0 and lsb0

Derived Properties

The systemrdl-compiler provides additional derived properties that intend to further simplify interpretation of the compiled register model. These derived properties may query multiple characteristics to determine their value.

Some examples:

See the Node class reference for more details.