What if GTKWave could show all signals, zoom to fit, and save the graph as a PDF every time it was openend? Using a TCL file, this is possible.

This post is a follow up to the last one, GTKWave on OSX, which covered installing the command line tool on OSX. The goal of this post is to show how to automate opening GTKWave files using TCL and a Makefile.

gtkwave.tcl

The TCL file accomplishes three things: adding all signals, zooming to fit, and printing out the signals to a PDF. There is a lot of documentation available inside the manual for using GTKWave’s functions. Also, the final PDF printing can be disabled if it is cumbersome. The following script will be invoked every time we start GTKWave from a Makefile:

### --------------------------------------------------------------------
### gtkwave.tcl
### Author: William Ughetta
### --------------------------------------------------------------------

# Resources:
# Manual: http://gtkwave.sourceforge.net/gtkwave.pdf#Appendix-E-Tcl-Command-Syntax
# Also see the GTKWave source code file: examples/des.tcl

# Add all signals
set nfacs [ gtkwave::getNumFacs ]
set all_facs [list]
for {set i 0} {$i < $nfacs } {incr i} {
    set facname [ gtkwave::getFacName $i ]
    lappend all_facs "$facname"
}
set num_added [ gtkwave::addSignalsFromList $all_facs ]
puts "num signals added: $num_added"

# zoom full
gtkwave::/Time/Zoom/Zoom_Full

# Print
set dumpname [ gtkwave::getDumpFileName ]
gtkwave::/File/Print_To_File PDF {Letter (8.5" x 11")} Minimal $dumpname.pdf

Makefile

The following Makefile is geared toward ELE 206 lab projects. Setting TARGET to the name of the pair of .v and .t.v files

### --------------------------------------------------------------------
### Makefile
### Author: William Ughetta
### --------------------------------------------------------------------

# Change This TARGET name:
TARGET = VerilogFile
TEST = $(TARGET)Test

GFLAGS = -S gtkwave.tcl
GTKWAVE_OSX = /Applications/gtkwave.app/Contents/Resources/bin/gtkwave

all: clean
	iverilog -g2005 -Wall -Wno-timescale -o $(TEST) $(TARGET).t.v
	vvp $(TEST)
	gtkwave $(GFLAGS) *.vcd 2>/dev/null || $(GTKWAVE_OSX) $(GFLAGS) *.vcd 2>/dev/null
clean:
	rm -f *.vcd
	rm -f *Test *test
zip:
	zip -r $$(basename $$(pwd)).zip *.v