Compiler (Views)

Helpers

By default your templates have access to a small number of template specific methods, such as the options hash, and the usual global scope.

This means that your device attributes are normally accessed via the global top-level objects that were instantiated in the target like this:

% if $dut.analog.atd

The <%= $dut.part_number %> device has a <%= $dut.analog.atd.bits %> bit analog to
digital converter block which provides superior conversion accuracy... 

% end

However you can easily create additional helper methods by opening the Origen::Generator::Compiler class and defining methods which can then be called directly from any template.

As a trivial example if I was writing a large document about the ATD module it might become tedious having to keep writing $dut.analog.atd every time I wanted to access an ATD attribute.

In that case the following helper method could be created to give me a shorthand access to the ATD model:

# config/boot.rb
require "#{Origen.root}/app/templates/helpers"

# app/templates/helpers.rb
module Origen
  class Generator
    class Compiler

      def atd
        $dut.analog.atd
      end

    end
  end
end

The above template could now be re-written as:

% if atd

The <%= $dut.part_number %> device has a <%= atd.bits %> bit analog to
digital converter block which provides superior conversion accuracy... 

% end

These helper methods can become very powerful depending on what you are trying to generate with your template. For example the J750 test program sheets for the flagship Origen application were originally generated via templates and we built up quite a large library of helper methods to generate entire test instance lines and flow sheet entries.

These helpers have since been incorporated into the Origen J750 generator and you should definitely use that in preference to templates if you are generating a test program for that platform. However it shows that with templates + custom helper methods you can very easily build powerful ASCII generators for your specific domain.