Text Templates in VHDL

-- VHDL does not have built-in support for text templates like Go does.
-- However, we can simulate some of the functionality using procedures
-- and string operations.

library IEEE;
use IEEE.STD_LOGIC_1164.ALL;
use IEEE.NUMERIC_STD.ALL;
use STD.TEXTIO.ALL;

entity TextTemplates is
end TextTemplates;

architecture Behavioral of TextTemplates is

    -- Procedure to print a string
    procedure print(str : in string) is
        variable l : line;
    begin
        write(l, str);
        writeline(output, l);
    end procedure;

    -- Procedure to simulate a simple template
    procedure simple_template(value : in string) is
    begin
        print("Value is " & value);
    end procedure;

    -- Type to simulate a struct
    type person is record
        name : string(1 to 20);
    end record;

    -- Procedure to simulate a template with a record field
    procedure record_template(p : in person) is
    begin
        print("Name: " & p.name);
    end procedure;

    -- Procedure to simulate conditional template
    procedure conditional_template(value : in string) is
    begin
        if value'length > 0 then
            print("yes");
        else
            print("no");
        end if;
    end procedure;

    -- Procedure to simulate range template
    procedure range_template(arr : in string_vector) is
    begin
        print("Range: ");
        for i in arr'range loop
            print(arr(i) & " ");
        end loop;
        print(LF);
    end procedure;

begin
    process
        variable jane : person := (name => "Jane Doe          ");
        variable arr : string_vector(1 to 4) := ("Go  ", "Rust", "C++ ", "C#  ");
    begin
        -- Simulate executing templates
        simple_template("some text");
        simple_template("5");
        
        record_template(jane);
        
        conditional_template("not empty");
        conditional_template("");
        
        range_template(arr);
        
        wait;
    end process;
end Behavioral;

This VHDL code simulates some of the functionality of Go’s text templates. Here’s an explanation of the translation:

VHDL doesn’t have built-in support for text templates, so we create procedures to simulate template behavior.
The print procedure is a helper to output strings, simulating Go’s fmt.Println.
simple_template simulates a basic template that inserts a value into a string.
We define a person record type to simulate Go’s struct.
record_template simulates a template that accesses a field of a record (like accessing a struct field in Go).
conditional_template simulates an if/else template by using VHDL’s if/else statement.
range_template simulates a range template by using a for loop to iterate over an array.
In the main process, we demonstrate the use of these “templates” with various inputs.

Note that VHDL is typically used for hardware description and doesn’t have many of the high-level features of Go. This example is a simulation of Go’s template functionality and wouldn’t be used in typical VHDL hardware design.

To run this VHDL code, you would need to use a VHDL simulator like ModelSim or GHDL. The output would be similar to the Go example, but the exact format might differ depending on the simulator used.

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Text Templates in VHDL