In this post I put together a few tips and tricks I’ve came across over the years related to SystemVerilog queues.
Access the last element of a queue
For a long time I was accessing the last element in a queue the “normal” way – using the computed index of that last element:
1 | my_value = my_queue[my_queue[my_queue.size() - 1]] |
However I just recently learned that I can use this very short syntax to get the last element of a queue:
1 | my_value = my_queue[$] |
You can even do some arithmetic operation with that $ symbol to get for example the second to last element:
1 | my_value = my_queue[$ - 1] |
Try it yourself in this EDA Playground example.
Sorting a queue
When I had to sort some queue the first option in my head was to implement some simple algorithm like Bubble Sort.
However, SystemVerilog queue comes with a useful and flexible function called sort().
For example if you want to sort a queue of integers in ascending order then you simply call the function sort(). For reverse sorting there is a similar function called rsort():
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 | int my_queue[$] = {3, 5, 4}; //sort from high to low my_queue.rsort(); foreach(my_queue[idx]) begin $display("my_queue[%0d]: %0d", idx, my_queue[idx]); end //sort from low to high my_queue.sort(); foreach(my_queue[idx]) begin $display("my_queue[%0d]: %0d", idx, my_queue[idx]); end |
Which produces the output:
1 2 3 4 5 6 | my_queue[0]: 5 my_queue[1]: 4 my_queue[2]: 3 my_queue[0]: 3 my_queue[1]: 4 my_queue[2]: 5 |
But the big flexibility of these rsort() and sort() functions is in their “with” clause and this is best emphasize when we have to sort a queue of objects based on some field from the object’s class.
Let’s consider a simple class containg some basic information about a player:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 | class player; string name; int score; function new(string name, int score); this.name = name; this.score = score; endfunction static function player get_instance(string name, int score); get_instance = new(name, score); endfunction function string convert2string(); return $sformatf("name: %0s, score: %0d", name, score); endfunction endclass |
Sorting a queue of players by score can be done using just one simple line of code:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 | player players[$]; players.push_back(player::get_instance(.name("Blondie"), .score(3))); players.push_back(player::get_instance(.name("Blacky"), .score(5))); players.push_back(player::get_instance(.name("Browny"), .score(4))); players.sort(p) with (p.score); foreach(players[idx]) begin $display("players[%0d]: %0s", idx, players[idx].convert2string()); end |
The output is this:
1 2 3 | players[0]: name: Blondie, score: 3 players[1]: name: Browny, score: 4 players[2]: name: Blacky, score: 5 |
You can try the example yourself on EDA Playground.
Searching a queue
An other extremely useful feature of the queues is their search capability.
The queues have some build-in functions which makes searching very easy and all of them have this with clause.
As in the previous example, we have a queue of players, but this time let’s make the list of players a little bit larger:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 | player players[$]; players.push_back(player::get_instance(.name("Blondie"), .score(3))); players.push_back(player::get_instance(.name("Blacky"), .score(5))); players.push_back(player::get_instance(.name("Pinky"), .score(6))); players.push_back(player::get_instance(.name("Browny"), .score(5))); players.push_back(player::get_instance(.name("Blue"), .score(9))); |
Searching all the players which score equal to 5 is just one line of code:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 | player search_results[$]; search_results = players.find(p) with (p.score == 5); foreach(search_results[idx]) begin $display("search_results[%0d]: %0s", idx, search_results[idx].convert2string()); end |
The result is this:
1 2 | search_results[0]: name: Blacky, score: 5 search_results[1]: name: Browny, score: 5 |
There are other similar functions very useful for searching, and all have this very useful with clause:
- find() – returns all the elements satisfying the given expression
- find_index() – returns the indexes of all the elements satisfying the given expression
- find_first() – returns the first element satisfying the given expression
- find_first_index() – returns the index of the first element satisfying the given expression
- find_last() – returns the last element satisfying the given expression
- find_last_index() – returns the index of the last element satisfying the given expression
You can try this example in EDA Playground.
That’s it!
If you have other tips that you want to share feel free to add them in a comment below.
HI Cristian,
Nice and concise article as always I’d add the (in)famous sum() method along with the “with” clause for example
int x[$] = ‘{1,4,17,3,10,55,50,10,3};
int z;
z=x.sum();
$display(“sum()=%0d”,z);
//you get 192 as result
z=numbers.sum(it) with (it>6);
$display(“sum with (it>6)=%0d”, z);
//you get 0 as result
Depending on what you want you need to do some changes
a- Counting of then number of elements greater than 6 (note the cast to int is required to force the result as the it>6 returns a 1-bit result)
z=x.sum() with (int'(it>6));
$display(“Count the number of elements that are > 6 =%0d”, z);
b- Sum of elements whose values are greater than 6
z=x.sum() with (it>6?it:0);
$display(“Sum the elements that are > 6 = %0d”, z);
That’s a great example!
Thanks for sharing it!
Hi Cristian Slav,
I’m so happy for this article because I gained something from it.
players.sort(p) with (p.score);
In the above mentioned statement, ‘p’ indicates the handle for the queue of objects which are all the types of class player.
Please let me know if i’m wrong and please give me some description on this.
Thanks & Regards,
Prathyusha
Hi Cristian Slav,
Could you please give me some description for this “players.sort(p) with (p.score)”.
I understood in this way, where ‘p’ is the handle for the queue of objects(players) which are all are type of class player.
Please let me know if i’m wrong.
Thanks & Regards,
Prathyusha Gadanchi