Command Reference

The Dynamatic shell is an interactive command line-based interface (you can launch it from Dynamatic’s top level directory with ./bin/dynamatic after building Dynamatic) that allows users to interact with Dynamatic and use the different commands available to generate dataflow circuits from C code.

This document provides an overview of the different commands available in the Dynamatic frontend and their respective flags and options.

Dynamatic Shell Commands

• help: Display list of commands.
• set-dynamatic-path <path>: Set the path of the root (top-level) directory of Dynamatic, so that it can locate various scripts it needs to function. This is not necessary if you run Dynamatic from said directory.
• set-vivado-path <path>: Set the path to the installation directory of Vivado.
• set-polygeist-path <path>: Sets the path to the Polygeist installation directory.
• set-fp-units-generator <flopoco|vivado>: Choose which floating point unit generator to use. See this section for more information.
• set-clock-period <clk>: Sets the target clock period in nanoseconds.
• set-src <source-path>: Sets the path of the .c file of the kernel that you want to compile.
• compile [...]: Compiles the source kernel (chosen by set-src) into a dataflow circuit. For more options, run compile --help.

The --buffer-algorithm flag allows users to use smart buffer placement algorithms notably fpga20 and fpl22 for throughput and timing optimizations.

The --fast-token-delivery flag enables the Fast Token Delivery (FTD) algorithm during the CF → Handshake lowering stage. Note that this option is currently incompatible with smart buffer placement algorithms.

• write-hdl [--hdl <vhdl|verilog|smv>]: Convert results from compile to a VHDL, Verilog or SMV file.
• simulate: Simulates the HDL produced by write-hdl.

• synthesize: Synthesizes the HDL result from write-hdl using Vivado.

• visualize: Visualizes the execution of the circuit simulated by ModelSim/Questa.

• exit: Exits the interactive Dynamatic shell.

For more information and examples on the typical usage of the commands, checkout the using Dynamatic and example pages.