In Specman I can convert a variable to a string using either:
x.to_string();
or
x.as_a(string);
Is there any difference between the two? If not, why does Specman provide both?
In Specman I can convert a variable to a string using either:
x.to_string();
or
x.as_a(string);
Is there any difference between the two? If not, why does Specman provide both?
as_a()
allows you to convert the expression to a specific type, not only string.
These are few examples from the docs
list_of_int.as_a(string)
list_of_byte.as_a(string)
string.as_a(list of int)
string.as_a(list of byte)
bool = string.as_a(bool) (Only TRUE and FALSE can be converted to Boolean; all other strings return an error)
string = bool.as_a(string)
enum = string.as_a(enum)
string = enum.as_a(string)
using as_a(string)
and to_string()
not always gives the same results.
var s: string;
s = "hello";
var lint: list of int;
lint = s.as_a(list of int);
print lint;
print lint.as_a(string);
print lint.to_string();
This will print something like this:
lint =
104
101
108
108
111
lint.as_a(string) = "hello"
list.to_string() = "104 101 108 108 111"
This is because to_string
will run on each element of the list and then the list will be concatenated with spaces, as_a
will however convert integers to characters and concatenate them, giving you the hello
word.