vrename - Man Page

change signal names across many Verilog files

Synopsis

  vrename <filename_or_directory>...

Vrename will allow a signal to be changed across all levels of the design hierarchy, or to create a cross reference of signal names. (It actually includes module names, macros, and other definitions, so those can be changed too.)

Vpm uses a three step process. First, use

    vrename --list  [<file.v>...]  [<directory>....]

This reads the specified files, or all files below the specified directory, and creates a signals.vrename file.

Now, edit the signals.vrename file manually to specify the new signal names. Then, use

    vrename --change [<file.v>...]  [<directory>....]

Note that in the signals.vrename file any signal names including special characters must follow Verilog naming rules in that they must be escaped with a leading backslash and trailing space. Vrename will attempt to preserve spacing when changing escaped to non-escaped names and vice-versa, however in some cases extra whitespace may be inserted to ensure proper downstream parsing.

Arguments

vrename takes the following arguments:

--help

Displays this message and program version and exits.

--version

Displays program version and exits.

--change

Take the signals file signals.vrename in the current directory and change the signals in the design as specified by the signals file. Either --list or --change must be specified.

--changefile {file}

Use the given filename instead of "signals.vrename".

--changelang

Include in the signals.vrename file the template needed to change the language standard for the file. For the first run, use "--list --changelang" and --language to specify the file's original language, then rerun with the "--change" option. The files will get escaped identifiers for the most recent Verilog standard. For example with --language 1364-2005, "do" will become "\do ".

--crypt

With --list, randomize the signal renames. With --change, compress spaces and comments and apply those renames listed in the file (presumably created with vrename --list --crypt).

The comment /*ENCRYPT_ME*/ must be included in all files that need to be encrypted, or use the --cryptall flag. If a signal should not be encrypted, it can simply be set in the signals.vrename list to be changed to itself. After encrypting, you may want to save the signals.vrename file so you have a key for decoding, and also so that it may be used for the next encryption run. When used in this way for the next encryption run, only new signals will get new encryptions, all other encryptions will be encrypted the same.

--cryptall

As with --crypt, but put cryptic names into signals.vrename even if the file does not include ENCRYPT_ME. Generally you will then need to edit the signals.vrename file manually to exclude any top level signals that should be preserved.

--keywords

Include keywords in the renaming list. Default is to ignore keywords, as changing a keyword will probably result in unrunnable code, however, occasionally it may be necessary to rename signals which happen to match the name of keywords recently added to the language (such as 'bit').

--language <1364-1995|1364-2001|1364-2005|1800-2005|1800-2009|1800-2012|1800-2017|1800-2023>

Set the language standard for the files. This determines which tokens are signals versus keywords, such as the ever-common "do" (data-out signal, versus a do-while loop keyword).

--list