Chapter 26. Creating an ASCII report file
| Part IV. Graphical User Interface |

## Chapter 26. Creating an ASCII report file

Though Covered's graphical coverage analyzer is very useful for examining coverage, there may still be times when a textual report is necessary. For that purpose, the GUI has a menu item for generating an ASCII coverage report, running Covered's "report" command on the currently loaded coverage information.

| Note
The ASCII report generator options are only available if one or more CDD files are currently loaded in the GUI.

When the `File -> Generate -> ASCII Report` menu option is selected (or the "Cntrl-Shift-R" shortcut is used), the ASCII Report Generator Window is created to allow the user to specify the current report output options and generate the report file. Once the report has been generated, it can be viewed within the GUI itself or it can be viewed with any type of file viewer/editor available.

The following subsections describe the various windows used to create a report file. Note that the report generation wizard uses several "pages" to describe the various options to set for creating a new report file, using Back and Next buttons on each page for navigation. Clicking on the Back button will not cause previously filled in pages to be reverted to their default values but rather will remain populated with the user's data. Similarly, if a page has been filled in with data and the Back button is clicked and then the Next button is clicked, the page contents are retained. The only way to clear out fields is to click the Cancel button at the bottom of each page and startup the report generation wizard again.

Clicking the Cancel button at any time will cause the report generation wizard to immediately exit. Clicking on the ? button at any time will bring up the user documentation for the current page (context sensitive help).

## 26.1. Navigating the Report Generator Selection Page

Figure 26.1, “Report Generation Option Selection Page” shows the look of this page of the report generation wizard.

Figure 26.1. Report Generation Option Selection Page

The first page of the report generation window allows the user to select whether all options should be interactively selected within the GUI or if a file should be read in which contains command-line options to the report command to use. If the latter is chosen, the contents of that file are read in and are populated in the GUI, but the report generation wizard will continue in the same fashion as the first option, allowing the user to change, remove or add to the options found in that file.

If the Create report by interactively selecting options entry is currently selected and the user wishes to not use a command-line file to populate the rest of the report generation pages, simply click on the Next button at the bottom of the page to continue. If the Create report by using option file entry is currently selected, the user must either type a valid filename or select one by clicking the Browse... button to the right of the file entry area and select a valid file. Once a valid filename is selected, the Next button will be enabled and the user may then click it to continue to the next page. Note that any filename can be selected (whether it's a valid command file or not). Only valid report command options found in that file are used to populate the wizard entries. No error message will be displayed if the file does not contain this information.

## 26.2. Report Generation Options Page

This wizard page allows you to setup the options to create the needed report. Figure Figure 26.2, “Report Generation Options Page” shows the contents of this page.

Figure 26.2. Report Generation Options Page

The options page is split into several different categories of options:

- Set ASCII Report Generation Options

- Level of Detail

- Accumulate By

- Coverage Type

- Show Metrics

### Set ASCII Report Generation Options

- Limit line width to X characters

  If this option is checked, the number of characters that will be displayed per line when outputting design logic will be limited to the number of characters specified in the entry box. If this option is unchecked, the length of the output design logic will be determined by the way the logic was formatted in the design file.

  This option can be useful for printing purposes where a logic design file contains logic that is formatted to exceed the number of characters than can be printed on a page or viewed on a screen.

- Suppress modules/instances from output if they contain no coverage information

  If this option is checked, any modules (or instances) that were considered for code coverage but did not contain any coverable code will be excluded from the report. If this option is unchecked, all modules/instances will be reported.

  This option may help make the report files easier to view if there are many modules/instances that do not contain coverage points.

- Output combinational logic vector operations in bitwise format

  Outputs combinational vector logic expressions in bitwise format instead of treating the vector as a 0 or "not 0" value. This can create quite a bit of extra output when creating verbose reports, but can provide the information for a more thorough analysis for these expression types. This option has the same effect as the -b option to the report command.

### Level of Detail

These radiobuttons control the level of detail that is output in the generated report. Only one value can be selected for the three available detail values:

- Summary

- Detailed

- Verbose

See Section 11.3, “Summary Vs. Detailed Vs. Verbose” for information on the difference between these three options.

### Accumulate By

These radiobuttons control whether coverage information is accumulated by instance or by module. Only one value can be selected for the two available options. See Section 11.4, “Module Vs. Instance” for information on the difference between these two options.

### Coverage Type

These radiobuttons control whether covered or uncovered coverage points are output in the report. Only one value can be selected for the two available options. See Section 11.5, “Covered Vs. Uncovered” for information on the difference between these two options.

### Show Metrics

These checkbuttons control which coverage metric information is output in the generated report. You may select any number (or combinations) of these options. All of the metrics available for viewing in the GUI can be output to a report file, including:

- Line

- Toggle

- Memory

- Combinational Logic

- FSM

- Assertion

- Race Conditions

  This item, though it is not a coverage metric, can be useful for understanding what logic was not considered for coverage due to violating the static race condition checks and what check was violated for each block.

### Save Options to File...

Once the above options have been specified, it can be useful to save those parameters to a file which can be loaded at a later time in the Section 26.1, “Navigating the Report Generator Selection Page” page of the GUI report generation wizard. This same file can also be fed "as is" into the Covered's command-line report command via the -f option. Click on this button to open a "Save As" window where you can create a filename to save this information into. Click on the Save button of this window to exit the window and save the information. Click on the Cancel button to abort this action.

### Output report to file frame

This frame of the ASCII Report window allows the user to specify a filename/location for the generated output file. By default, the report name is the same as the first CDD file loaded, substituting the .cdd extension for a .rpt extension. By default, the directory location to store the generated report is the same directory that the first CDD file exists in. To change this name/location, the user may either enter a value in the entry field or click on the Browse... button to display a "Save As" type window.

### View the report in the GUI after it is created

Selecting this option will cause a window to open after the report has been generated which will contain the contents of the generated report in a read-only view. You can search in this window and scroll to help view the entire document.

Once you have completed setting everything up as you need, click on the Create button to generate the report file. If everything worked, the report generation window will close and, if enabled via the the section called “View the report in the GUI after it is created” selector, a file viewer window will be displayed with the contents of the newly generated report file. Click on the "X" button in the window manager to close this window when you have finished with it.

Chapter 25. Creating a New CDD |  | Chapter 27. Creating a CDD Ranking Report