Fix questa/modelsim on Windows

[themperek]

Tested on latest Questa (32 and 64) and Modelsim 12.1 (32) using conda + msys2

Will update documentation as next step.

Usage:

• Install simulator ex. Icarus and add to PATH to the *.exe folder
• Install Miniconda (according to your simulation version 32/64bit)
• Start Anaconda Prompt
• Install msys conda install -c msys2 m2-base m2-make m2w64-toolchain libpython
• Install cocotb (for questa you use https://github.com/themperek/cocotb/tree/questa_win questa_win branch)

see also: Dockerfile.windows

[eric-wieser]

This could really do with a comment. I assume it's the same as all the other makefiles?

[eric-wieser]

Would print(os.pathsep.join(subprocess.check_output(['cygpath', '-m', d]) for d in sys.path)) work here?

[themperek]

Can do but in practice it will be something like this:

python -c "import sys, os, subprocess; print(os.pathsep.join(str(subprocess.check_output(['cygpath', '-m', d]))[2:-3] for d in sys.path if d != '' ))"

Is that better?

[imphil]

Thanks @themperek for working on our Windows builds.

However, I'm not a fan of those changes, it's effectively piling workarounds on top of each other, one simulator at a time. What we need to have is a function that knows how to format a PATH-like list of directories and a file path according to the environment rules. Since especially msys has rules that differ depending on how you call it (cygwin paths or native windows paths) it doesn't make sense to spread this ugly and error-prone environment logic spread all Makefiles.

[themperek]

I would rather work on getting ride of Makefiles ....

[themperek]

@imphil Where those functions should be located? In makefile? In cocotb? Can try to write them with sed (like it was before). Not sure if this can be done in a "nice" way.

Ex. Modelsim/Questa seems to accept only path in a form C:/a/b in the command file (nor C:\a\b, nor /c/a/b seems to work for me).

The same situation is already here: https://github.com/potentialventures/cocotb/blob/master/cocotb/share/makefiles/simulators/Makefile.icarus

[eric-wieser]

Modelsim/Questa seems to accept only path in a form C:/a/b in the command file

It seems very unlikely to me that these care about the PYTHONPATH variable - that should be touched only by the python interpreter, which is independent of the simulator.

[themperek]

For PYTHONPATH it seems to accept only /c/a/b format for me (Win 10).
In any case PYTHONPATH has to be taken from python sys.path for me to work (Win 10).

[gretzteam]

Hi,
I tried this (which is VERY nice as the entire thing is part of the conda installation instead of having to deal with msys2 install and all the other stuff). It actually works fine for the examples/adder test, but it fails as soon as I try to import numpy inside the test. The error is similar to what is discussed here, I pasted it below:
numpy/numpy#12957

I tried with miniconda, then anaconda, removed/updated numpy etc...no luck.

Since the change here was about the path, I wonder if you see the same issue on your end and maybe it's not a local issue on my side? Just importing numpy causes the crash.

Thanks!

> #      0.00ns CRITICAL Failed to import module test_mac: DLL load failed: The specified module could not be found.
> #
> #      0.00ns INFO     MODULE variable was "test_mac"
> #
> #      0.00ns INFO     Traceback:
> #
> #      0.00ns INFO     Traceback (most recent call last):
> #
> #                        File "C:\ProgramData\Anaconda3\lib\site-packages\cocotb\regression.py", line 133, in initialise
> #
> #                          module = _my_import(module_name)
> #
> #                        File "C:\ProgramData\Anaconda3\lib\site-packages\cocotb\regression.py", line 63, in _my_import
> #
> #                          mod = __import__(name)
> #
> #                        File "C:\cocotb\designs\MACtest\tests\test_mac.py", line 8, in <module>
> #
> #                          import numpy as np
> #
> #                        File "C:\ProgramData\Anaconda3\lib\site-packages\numpy\__init__.py", line 140, in <module>
> #
> #                          from . import _distributor_init
> #
> #                        File "C:\ProgramData\Anaconda3\lib\site-packages\numpy\_distributor_init.py", line 34, in <module>
> #
> #                          from . import _mklinit
> #
> #                      ImportError: DLL load failed: The specified module could not be found.

[themperek]

It looks like missing LD_LIBRARY_PATH to extra dll (in this case numpy). Will try to have a look.

[gretzteam]

Hi,
Got it to work! I don't think there is any problem with the Makefiles.
Had to install numpy using pip instead of conda!? I uninstalled it and simply re-installed using pip. Everything is fine now...
Maybe 'conda' puts some dll or library somewhere that isn't part of the MANY variations of /ProgramData/Miniconda3/xxx that are already in the path, but I don't know where...

[themperek]

@imphil I know this is not very nice but I have no better idea with makefiles and without this on Windows is hard to make this working.

[elgorwi]

I'd like to see this PR merged in some way or another.
If we're prepared to use cygpath, it will open up some possibilities to clean up the rather fragile situation of VERILOG_SOURCES/VHDL_SOURCES in the user makefiles with the $(WPWD) variable. We could then simply use $(PWD) for both nix and windows. This will require some work on the other simulator specific makefiles though.
Also note that cygpath -p -u could be used to convert the PYTHONPATH variable. The -p option allows cygpath to convert a path list. Unfortunately this will only work with sane paths (no spaces or special chars)

[themperek]

@elgorwi You can try this: https://github.com/themperek/cocotb-test/ (still experimental but should make windows much nicer experience long run)

[elgorwi]

@themperek that looks really cool! I'll have to try it out when I get some spare time. Thanks

[themperek]

Close in favor of #1099