Extracting behavior and dynamically generated hierarchy from SystemC models

We present a novel approach to extract the dynamically generated module hierarchy and its behavior from a SystemC model. SystemC is a popular modeling language which can be used to specify systems at a high abstraction level. The module hierarchy of a SystemC model is dynamically constructed during the execution of the elaboration phase of the model. This means that a system designer can build regular structures using loops and conditional statements. Currently, most SystemC tools can not cope with SystemC models for which the module hierarchy depends on dynamic parameters. In our approach this hierarchical information is retrieved by controlling and monitoring the executing of the elaboration phase of the model using a GDB debugger. Thereafter, the behavioral information is retrieved by using a GCC plug-in. This plug-in produces abstract syntax trees in static single assignment form. This behavioral information is linked with the hierarchical information. Our approach is completely non-intrusive. The SystemC model and the SystemC reference implementation can be used without any modification. We have implemented our approach in a SystemC front-end called SHaBE (SystemC Hierarchy and Behavior Extractor). This front-end facilitates the development of future SystemC visualization, debugging, static verification, and synthesis tools.