Running command-line and batch-mode simulations
The typical method of running ModelSim is interactive: you push buttons and/or pull down menus in a series of windows in the GUI (graphic user interface). But there are really three specific modes of ModelSim operation: GUI, command line, and batch. Here are their characteristics:
- GUI mode
This is the usual interactive mode; it has graphical windows, push-buttons, menus, and a command line in the text window. This is the default mode.
- Command-line mode
This an operational mode that has only an interactive command line; no interactive windows are opened. To run vsim in this manner, invoke it with the -c option as the first argument from either the UNIX prompt or the DOS prompt in Windows 95/98/2000/NT.
- Batch mode
Batch mode is an operational mode that provides neither an interactive command line, nor interactive windows.
In a UNIX environment, vsim can be invoked in batch mode by redirecting standard input using the "here-document" technique. Batch mode does not require the -c option. In a Windows environment, vsim is run from a Windows 95/98/2000/NT DOS prompt and standard input and output are re-directed to and from files. An example is:
vsim ent arch <<!
log -r *
run 100
do test.do
quit -f
!
Here is another example of batch mode, this time using a file as input:
vsim counter < yourfile
From a user's point of view, command-line mode can look like batch mode if you use the vsim command with the -do option to execute a macro that does a quit -f (-530) before returning, or if the startup.do macro does a quit -f before returning. But technically, that mode of operation is still command-line mode because stdin is still operating from the terminal.
The following paragraphs describe the behavior defined for the batch and command-line modes.
