Re: [vhdl-200x] Minutes for VHDL-200X-FT meeting, San Jose Dec 4, 2003

Subject: Re: [vhdl-200x] Minutes for VHDL-200X-FT meeting, San Jose Dec 4, 2003
From: Andy D Jones (andy.d.jones@lmco.com)
Date: Tue Dec 09 2003 - 06:50:10 PST

[I subscribe to this list, but have not been able to post to it in the past, so if it this does not make it onto the list, if one of you kind Gentlemen would forward it, I'd appreciate it.]

WRT adding "if else" to conditional signal assignments, and possibly deprecating "when else":

I prefer the use of "when" in concurrent assignment statements, since it confers the context of the assignment as "whenever".  Whereas "if" confers an immediate condition that must exist at a certain time.  The actual enforcement of these meanings is performed by the (virtual) processes surrounding each, but they remain a helpful reminder to the reader.

If conditional assignments were allowed in sequential assignment statements (which I do support), I would prefer that they use "if" in those cases, to preserve the "whenever" nature of "when" in concurrent assignments. I realize that "when" is also used in sequential case statements without meaning "whenever", but that's a legacy of Ada and other lanquages that do not have a concurrent statement context.

The use of "when" in concurrent conditional signal assignments is a commonly used feature, and changing it now would be very confusing to the majority of users. While I agree that the use of "when" is often confused with selected signal assignments, this has been the case for too long to change now.  It has become "just one of those things you have to know" about VHDL.

I would definitely NOT deprecate the use of "when" in conditional signal assignments, since deprecation is usually applied only to seldomly used language features, which is certainly not the situation here. For deprecation to have any meaning, it would eventually lead to removal from the standard, which would break untold thousands of lines of legacy code.

Furthermore, in the absence of deprecating the use of "when" in conditional assignment statements, I cannot support the addition of "one more way" to code the same thing that is not substantially more efficient, and does not confer substantially different context.


Andy D Jones
Lockheed Martin
Missiles & Fire Control
Dallas TX
andy.d.jones@lmco.com

VhdlCohen@aol.com wrote:
snip...

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Add "if else" for conditional signal (deprecate when else?)
AReg <= A if rising_edge(Clk)
Ben:  No objections.
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snip....


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