Awesome

SKILL Tools

Tools to ease working with SKILL and SKILL++ in Cadence Virtuoso. The main feature of interest is the unit testing framework in the folder qtest. This repo contains the code that I use regularly in my PhD so it's also available in case anyone finds any use for it. There's not a lot of SKILL code in the wild beyond the Cadence forums.

Project Structure

Folder	Namespace	Purpose
`circuits`	`qub`	Circuit analysis
`design_environment`	`qub`	Manipulating the Cadence Virtuoso design environment
`geometry`	`qub`	Geometry calculations
`ocean`	`qub`	Processing simulation results
`pcell`	`qub`	Generating custom PCells
`qtest`	`qtest`	Unit testing.
`std`	`qub`	A "standard library" of useful functions.
`inductor_generator`	`qub`	Inductor PCell generation.

Importing the project

Create the environment variable QUB_CODE_REPO_DIR and point it at the repo root directory. Add the src folder to the SKILL path and run (load (strcat (getShellEnvVar "QUB_CODE_REPO_DIR") "/src/init.ils")) and all other modules will be imported. The src folder can be added to the SKILL path like so: (setSkillPath (append (getSkillPath) (list (strcat (getShellEnvVar "QUB_CODE_REPO_DIR") "/src/")))). If the inductor PCell code is to be used, this code library needs to be re-added using libInit.il for the Virtuoso library that the PCell resides in or else stream-out will fail.

Unit Testing

The unit testing framework is modelled after Python's unittest module and provides a basic set of assertions for testing your code.

Example Test

The test is run by calling load on the file containing the test.

(qtest::runSuites
  (qtest::TestSuite ((f qub:::join_lists))
    (qtest::TestCase join_three_lists
      (qtest::assertEqual (list "X" 2 3 4 5 6)
                           (f (list (list 1 2) (list 3 4) (list 5 6))))))
  (qtest::TestSuite ((f qub::flatten_list))
    (qtest::TestCase normal_use
      (qtest::assertEqual (list 1 2 3 4 5 6 7)
                           (f (list 1 2 (list 3 (list 4 (list 5 6) 7))))))))

(load "./code/src/std/test_lists.ils")
1 of 2 tests passed (1 failures) (0 skipped) (0 expected failures)
Test: join_three_lists
Result: Fail
 Message: No msg.
 Inputs: (list("X" 2 3 4 5 6) (f list(list(1 2) list(3 4) list(5 6))))
 Evaluated Inputs: (("X" 2 3 4 5 6) (1 2 3 4 5 6))

Main Functions and Macros

`qtest::runAllTests`

Parameter(s)	Side Effect(s)
Directory (`string`)	Calls `load` on all files prefixed with `test_` in the directory

Takes a folder path and loads all modules prefixed with test_.

`qtest::TestCase`

Parameters(s)	Keyword Parameters	Output(s)
Test Name (unquoted symbol)	`skip` (bool)	List of the test name symbol and the function object
body	`expect_fail` (bool)

Represents a single test. Can contain any code but must return the result of an assertion function. The test name is contained in a list with the function object so tests don't pollute the top level namespace.

Skipping a test

To mark a test to be skipped, set the skip keyword argument to true.

Marking a test that you expect to fail

Set the expect_fail keyword argument to true. If the test passes it will count as a pass but if it fail it will not be recorded as a fail.

`qtest::TestSuite`

Parameter(s)	Output(s)
Test Cases	List containing lists returned by `qtest::TestCase`

A collection of test cases. A suite should be used to test a single function or method.

`qtest::runSuites`

Parameter(s)	Side Effect(s)
Any number of Test Suites	Prints the results of the tests

Test suites should be written in the body of this macro. When the module file is loaded in Virtuoso, the tests are initialised and the results are printed in the CIW.

Assertions

Each assertion takes a keyword argument msg which is printed if the test fails.

`qtest::assertEqual`

Parameter(s)	Keyword Parameters	Output(s)
a	msg (`string`)	`qtest::Result`
b

Checks if two objects are equal. Uses the qub::equal method to allow you to implement equality for your own objects as well as numbers, strings etc.

`qtest::assertNotEqual`

Parameter(s)	Keyword Parameters	Output(s)
a	msg (`string`)	`qtest::Result`
b

Checks if two objects are not equal. Uses the qub::notEqual method to allow you to implement equality for your own objects as well as numbers, strings etc.

`qtest::assertTrue`

Parameter(s)	Keyword Parameters	Output(s)
a	msg (`string`)	`qtest::Result`

Checks that the argument is true.

`qtest::assertNil`

Parameter(s)	Keyword Parameters	Output(s)
a	msg (`string`)	`qtest::Result`

Checks that the argument is nil.

`qtest::assertEq`

Parameter(s)	Keyword Parameters	Output(s)
a	msg (`string`)	`qtest::Result`
b

Both arguments are the same object.

`qtest::assertNotEq`

Parameter(s)	Keyword Parameters	Output(s)
a	msg (`string`)	`qtest::Result`
b

The arguments are different objects.

`qtest::assertMember`

Parameter(s)	Keyword Parameters	Output(s)
value	msg (`string`)	`qtest::Result`
list

The object is a member of the list.

`qtest::assertNotMember`

Parameter(s)	Keyword Parameters	Output(s)
value	msg (`string`)	`qtest::Result`
list

The object is not a member of the list.

`qtest::assertIsInstance`

Parameter(s)	Keyword Parameters	Output(s)
Object	msg (`string`)	`qtest::Result`
Quoted Class

The object is an instance of the class.

`qtest::assertNotIsInstance`

Parameter(s)	Keyword Parameters	Output(s)
Object	msg (`string`)	`qtest::Result`
Quoted Class

The object is not an instance of the class.

`qtest::assertRaises`

Parameter(s)	Keyword Parameters	Output(s)
Function Call	msg (`string`)	`qtest::Result`

Checks that the expression raises an error using error. It may not catch other errors within the expression.

`qtest::assertAlmostEqual`

Parameter(s)	Keyword Parameters	Output(s)
a	msg (`string`)	`qtest::Result`
b

Checks that two floats are almost equal. Uses qub::almostEqual which is a port of Python's math.isclose and uses the same optional arguments.

`qtest::assertNotAlmostEqual`

Parameter(s)	Keyword Parameters	Output(s)
a	msg (`string`)	`qtest::Result`
b

Checks that two floats are not almost equal.

Standard Library Functions and Macros

`qub::checkType`

Parameters	Side Effects
Object	Throws an error if the object is of the expected type.
Quoted Class Name

For implementing run-time type checking in functions.

`qub::equal`

Parameters	Result
a	Bool
b

A generic function for implementing equality for your own types.

`qub::nequal`

Parameters	Result
a	Bool
b

A generic function for implementing inequality for your own types.

`qub::allEqual`

Parameters	Result
`@rest values`	bool

Checks if all values are equal. It uses qub::equal for checking equality.

`qub::listFileRec`

Parameter	Result
Path (string)	List of files in the directory

Recursively searches the path for all files. It ignores all dotted directories.

`qub::foldl`

Paramater	Result
fn(accumulator value)	The "folded" value
Initial Value
List of Values

The HaskellWiki can probably explain this better than I could.

`qub::foldr`

The same as qub::foldl but it calls reverse on the list before it processes it.

`qub::sum`

Sums a list of numbers

`qub:::lcmp`

An implementation of python's list comprehensions. The predicate is optional.

>>>(qub:::lcmp (times x 2) for x in (list 1 2 3 4) if (evenp x))
(4 8)

`qub::joinLists`

Paramater	Result
List of lists	A single list of the values within the input lists

`qub::range`

Keyword parameters	Result
start	List of integers
stop
step

A port of python's range function.

>>>(qub::range ?start 0 ?stop 20 ?step 3)
(0 3 6 9 12
    15 18
)

`qub::almostEqual`

Parameters	Keyword Parameters	Result
a	`rel_tol`	Bool
b	`abs_tol`

Checks that two values are almost equal. This is a generic function and can be applied to your own types. The method specialised on numbers is a port of Python's math.isclose and uses the same optional arguments.

rel_tol is the relative tolerance. 0.05 would be a 5% relative tolerance. abs_tol is the absolute tolerance.

`qub::startsWith`

Parameters	Result
string	Bool
prefix (string)

Checks if a string begins with a particular prefix