VUnit 3.0 Color Logging

Note

This article was originally posted on LinkedIn where you may find some comments on its contents.

VUnit 3.0, our next major release, is around the corner and with it comes a number of updates and additions. This first preview post will demonstrate color logging, one of the updates we made to our logging framework.

Color logging is exactly what it sounds like, the addition of colors to simplify browsing of logs. For example

What you see above is the default coloring but you can also create your own colored log levels and colorize the log messages.

There is also another subtle but still important difference in VUnit 3.0 logging. Just like before a log message can be as simple as

info("Some message");

and just like before you can log to a custom logger to differentiate how logging is handled in different parts of the system.

info(scoreboard_logger, "Some message");

The difference is not in how you make these calls but in scoreboard_logger itself. Prior to VUnit 3.0 loggers were protected types which comes with a number of restrictions preventing them to be used freely. These restrictions are addressed by the upcoming VHDL-2017 standard but rather than waiting for that standard to be adopted by the simulator vendors, something that usually takes a few years, VUnit 3.0 has redefined the logger type. This change removes all such restrictions and my next preview post will show how that simplifies logging.