IEEE 200X Fast Track Change Proposal

ID:	  FT05

Proposer:     Jim Lewis (jim@synthworks.com)

Status:       Open
Proposed:     1-Jan-2003
Analyzed:     Date
Resolved:     Date

Enhancement Summary:     Add to_string, to_hstring, to_ostring, to_dstring
Related issues:          Also discussed in std_1164.  Also see ft06.
Relevant LRM section:    

Enhancement Detail:
----------------------------
Add conversion functions to std.textio/ieee.std_logic_textio (see 1164
about donation of this package before panicing) that convert from a
type to string.  Alternately since these will be used by report, should
they be defined in std.standard and std_logic_1164?  Much the same 
way 'image does, but for all types (not just scalars).  Procedures 
should support formatting similar to std.textio.write.

This permits printing of useful messages with assert/report:
assert (ExpectedVal = ReadVal)
  report "In ... Expected Value /= Read Value.  Expected = " &
        to_string(Expected) & "    Read = " & to_string(ReadVal))
  severity error ;


It also allows usage of VHDL-93 write(<file_handle>, <string>) 
in a single print line statement:  

write(Output, "%%%ERROR data value miscompare in CpuModel." &
       CRLF & "  Actual data value = " & to_hstring(Data) &
       CRLF & "  Expected data value = " & to_hstring(ExpData) &
       CRLF & "  at time:  " to_string(now, right, 12) ) ; 



For Discussion:
----------------------------
Should the functions have long names (to_string), or short
names (to_str or tostr), or support both with aliases?



Analysis:
----------------------------
[To be performed by the 200X Fast Track Working Group]



Resolution:
----------------------------
[To be performed by the 200X Fast Track Working Group]