Consistent treatment of flag variables

[povik]

Description

There are a number of variables to turn things on/off, as documented on the "flow variables" page: https://openroad-flow-scripts.readthedocs.io/en/latest/user/FlowVariables.html

As far as I can tell those variables don't have consistent interpretation, for some variables they must be set to 1 for the documented effect (e.g. SKIP_CTS_REPAIR_TIMING), for other variables the existence of the variable is all that matters, the value is ignored (e.g. EQUIVALENCE_CHECK).

Suggested Solution

The obvious suggestion is to have a helper to check flags which would be used throughout the Tcl code; I have no idea if there's a fitting place to define one.

Additional Context

No response

[maliberty]

I agree things have gotten somewhat inconsistent.

I believe all steps start with load.tcl so that could be a place to put the utility (I see append_env_var is there which seems like a utility). You could also create a utility.tcl and source it from load.tcl to make a cleaner separation.

Are you interested in resolving this?

[povik]

Are you interested in resolving this?

Yes! If I get to it I will make the change.