Welcome to FOEDAG’s documentation!

Why FOEDAG?

FOEDAG is an open-source QT-based GUI Framework for EDA tools. It follows the classic EDA tool Design Pattern of Tcl-driven QT GUIs. It is a collection of Widgets and components that can be re-used individually in different GUIs. It also offers the basic framework to create your own GUI without having to reinvent the wheel.

Technical Highlights

FOEDAG QT & Tcl based framework is a classic framework found in commercial EDA tools. All GUI and Terminal commands are executed as Tcl commands, and can be replayable in scripts. All commands support Undo/Redo with a stack of previous commands. The GUI thread ensures constant refresh, while the worker thread(s) perform the tasks and run the Tcl interpreter. The backend part of the tool can be run headless with no GUI. Each main widget component can be swaped with non-open source variants. Each main widget component can be executed separately in mini-main to guaranty minimum dependancy. All main GUI Design Patterns are observed: Model-View-Controller DP, Command DP, Listener DP.

Help

Full command line options command_line_options_and_tcl_help.

—– FOEDAG HELP —–

Options:: –help: This help –noqt: Tcl only, no GUI –replay <script>: Replay GUI test –script <script>: Execute a Tcl script
Tcl commands:: help gui_start gui_stop tcl_exit

Getting Started

Dependencies

In general, OpenFPGA requires specific versions for the following dependencies:

cmake:

version >3.15 for graphical interface

gcc:

version >9 as the project requires full support on C++17 features

qt:

version >5 as the project requires Qt5 features

python dependencies:

python packages are also required:

python3 -m pip install -r requirements.txt

Ubuntu

Full list of dependencies can be found at install_ubuntu_dependencies_build_.

# Install required dependencies for Ubuntu systems
sudo apt-get update -qq
sudo apt install -y \
  g++-11 gcc-11 \
  tclsh \
  cmake \
  build-essential \
  google-perftools \
  libgoogle-perftools-dev \
  uuid-dev \
  lcov \
  valgrind \
  xorg \
  qtbase5-dev qtchooser qt5-qmake qtbase5-dev-tools \
  xvfb \
  yosys \
  automake

# For QML: qtdeclarative5-dev

sudo ln -sf /usr/bin/g++-11 /usr/bin/g++
sudo ln -sf /usr/bin/gcc-11 /usr/bin/gcc
sudo ln -sf /usr/bin/gcov-11 /usr/bin/gcov

Note

Different Ubuntu version may require different package names. See details in the sub subsections

Ubuntu 18.04

sudo apt-get install qt5-default g++-9 \
   libkf5qqc2desktopstyle-dev \
   tclsh \
   cmake \
   build-essential \
   google-perftools \
   libgoogle-perftools-dev \
   uuid-dev \
   lcov \
   valgrind \
   xorg \
   xvfb

Ubuntu 20.04

sudo apt-get install qtbase5-dev qtchooser qt5-qmake qtbase5-dev-tools g++-9 \
   libkf5qqc2desktopstyle-dev \
   tclsh \
   cmake \
   build-essential \
   google-perftools \
   libgoogle-perftools-dev \
   uuid-dev \
   lcov \
   valgrind \
   xorg \
   xvfb

Ubuntu 21.04

sudo apt-get install qtbase5-dev qtchooser qt5-qmake qtbase5-dev-tools g++-9 \
   libkf5qqc2desktopstyle-dev \
   tclsh \
   cmake \
   build-essential \
   google-perftools \
   libgoogle-perftools-dev \
   uuid-dev \
   lcov \
   valgrind \
   xorg \
   xvfb

Ubuntu 21.10

sudo apt-get install qtbase5-dev qtchooser qt5-qmake qtbase5-dev-tools g++-9 \
   libkf5qqc2desktopstyle-dev \
   tclsh \
   cmake \
   build-essential \
   google-perftools \
   libgoogle-perftools-dev \
   uuid-dev \
   lcov \
   valgrind \
   xorg \
   xvfb \
   autoconf

AlmaLinux 8.4

Warning

needs further testing

sudo dnf install qt5-qtbase-devel

Note

Both “make” and “make test” will pass after this package is installed, however I don’t know the difference between this package and the Ubuntu 20.04/21.04 ones yet, and potential differences may bring impacts in the future. Consider support for RHEL-based distros experimental at the moment.

Mac OS

Full list of dependencies can be found at install_macos_dependencies_build_.

# Install required dependencies for Mac OS systems
brew install qt5
export PATH="/usr/local/opt/qt@5/bin:$PATH"
export LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/opt/qt@5/lib"
export CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/opt/qt@5/include"

WIN

MSVC

Minimal requirements:

Microsoft Visual Studio сommunity edition
Qt5 for MSVC
Make sure component ‘C++ CMake tools for windows’ is installed for Microsoft Visual Studio
Make sure Qt bin are in the PATH variable. e.g. set PATH=C:Qt5.15.2msvc2019_64bin;%PATH%
Make sure Qt5_DIR is set. e.g. C:/Qt/5.15.2/msvc2019_64/lib/cmake/Qt5

MSYS2 MinGW64

MSYS2 env with the MinGW64 g++ compiler can be used to build FOEDAG.

Get the latest installer from : https://www.msys2.org/
Follow the steps on the main site : https://www.msys2.org/ (also listed below, step 1-6), and step 7 lists the additional packages needed to build FOEDAG:
1. Invoke the downloaded installer
2. Allow installer to run the MSYS2 MSYS Shell
3. Run pacman -Syu for initial base updates
4. At the end, it will close the terminal after confirmation
5. Run MSYS2 MSYS Shell
6. Run pacman -Su for remaining base updates
7. Run pacman -S --needed base-devel mingw-w64-x86_64-toolchain git mingw-w64-x86_64-cmake mingw-w64-x86_64-qt5-base-debug mingw-w64-x86_64-qt5 mingw-w64-x86_64-qt5-declarative-debug mingw-w64-x86_64-tcl mingw-w64-x86_64-zlib for installing required packages.
  
  Select default (all) packages to install here
8. Close the MSYS2 MSYS Shell
Now, use MSYS2 MinGW x64 Shell (from Start Menu) to open the right shell and start building.
If the system has MSVC compiler setup with Qt5 installed, it is likely that Qt5_DIR env variable is set.

If so, the MSYS2 build will pick up the MSVC Qt5 install, and linking will fail due to the difference in name mangling.

In this case, ensure that Qt5_DIR is set to the MinGW64 Qt5 packages before building.
```
export Qt5_DIR=/mingw64/lib/cmake/Qt5
```

Build Instructions

Before compiling source codes, please read the Dependencies and ensure correct environment setup

Clone and Initialize Submodules

git clone https://github.com/os-fpga/FOEDAG.git
cd FOEDAG
git submodule update --init --recursive

Compile source codes

  make
or
  make debug
or
  make release_no_tcmalloc (For no tcmalloc)

make install (/usr/local/bin and /usr/local/lib/foedag by default which requires sudo privilege,
             use PREFIX= for alternative locations.)

Run quick test

make test

Build documentation

make doc

You can view the documentation under the docs/build/html using a web browser, e.g., Firefox

Note

Recommend using make -j<int> to accelerate the compilation, where <int> denotes the number of cores to be used in compilation.

Git flow

On this page, you can find rules and tips on how to use git with this project.

Fork

First of all, to contribute, you need to create a fork of the project on GitHub. To keep your fork always in sync: 1. Specify a remote upstream repo to sync with your fork

git remote add upstream https://github.com/os-fpga/FOEDAG.git

Verify using

git remote -v

Fetch branches and commits from the upstream repo

git fetch upstream

Checkout your fork’s local branch that you want to sync and merge chenges from upstream branch. For example ‘main’

git checkout main
git merge upstream/main

Push changes to update your fork

git push origin main

Branch

shared branch:: a branch that several developers are working on at once
private branch:: a branch that only one developer is working on

Please, don’t use git merge to sync your private branch. This makes the history tangled. With a regular rebase you can update your feature branch with the default branch (or any other branch). This is an important step for Git-based development strategies.

git checkout feature-branch
git fetch origin main:main
git rebase main
git push --force origin feature-branch

Note

git rebase rewrites the commit history. It can be harmful to do it in shared branches. It can cause complex and hard to resolve merge conflicts.

Pull request

To merge your branch with the main fork, create a pull request by GitHub

Contact

Alain Dargelas

Xifan Tang

Kaihui Tu

Publications & References

[TGA+19]

X. Tang, E. Giacomin, A. Alacchi, B. Chauviere, and P. Gaillardon. Openfpga: an opensource framework enabling rapid prototyping of customizable fpgas. In 2019 29th International Conference on Field Programmable Logic and Applications (FPL), volume, 367–374. Sep. 2019. doi:10.1109/FPL.2019.00065.

For more information on the VTR see vtr_doc or vtr_github

For more information on the Yosys see yosys_doc or yosys_github

For more information on the original FPGA architecture description language see xml_vtr

Welcome to FOEDAG’s documentation!

Why FOEDAG?

Technical Highlights

Help

—– FOEDAG HELP —–

Getting Started

Dependencies

Ubuntu

Ubuntu 18.04

Ubuntu 20.04

Ubuntu 21.04

Ubuntu 21.10

AlmaLinux 8.4

Mac OS

WIN

MSVC

MSYS2 MinGW64

Build Instructions

Clone and Initialize Submodules

Compile source codes

Run quick test

Build documentation

Git flow

Fork

Branch

Pull request

Contact

Publications & References

Indices and tables