Interactive Path Analysis Feature Integration

[w0lek]

Summary

Added the ability to operate the VPR Viewer in server mode and accept and reply to requests from third-party applications (clients) via socket.

Change log from iteration 1 PR: #2483
which was canceled. This PR is accumulative, it contains all changes from PR 2483#

• Implemented per path element renderer, allowing to render any combination of path and path elements selection.
• Using sockpp wrapper to provide cross-platform communication (previously restricted to UNIX socket only).
• Transitioned to header-based communication protocol instead of delimiter-based to enable sending zipped data.
• Implementing zlib compression of timing report before transmission.

Description

Implemented the ability to run the VPr Viewer in server mode by specifying a few new command-line arguments: --server and --port_num N. Once the server mode is activated, the VPp Viewer waits for a single client connection to be established.
Currently there two requests are supported:

1. get n critical path report
   example:
   {"CMD":"0","JOB_ID":"1","OPTIONS":"int:path_num:100;string:path_type:setup;string:details_level:netlist;bool:is_flat_routing:0"}

2. hight light critical path elements
   example:
   {"CMD":"1","JOB_ID":"3","OPTIONS":"string:path_elements:0#1,2;string:high_light_mode:crit path flylines delays;bool:draw_path_contour:1"}

Motivation and Context

The VPR Viewer server mode enables an extended integration with third-party applications, enhancing the debugging process of FPGA designs. This mode allows parsing reports on the third-party side and brings interactivity to it. Users are able to select paths and path elements freely, and see the result of their selection in the VPR Viewer.

How Has This Been Tested?

The changes are utilized in the Aurora package, where Aurora acts as a client app(in a sense of Interactive Path Analysis Tool), wrapping the execution of the VPR Viewer. Furthermore, these changes have been integrated into FOEDAG already, making them potentially useful for any software component based on FOEDAG.

Aurora v2.6 packages already contains VPR with such functionality.

The package also contains docs/Aurora_Quick_Start_Guide.pdf where in chapter 3.7 there is full feature description with example how to use it.

As long as the command-line argument --server is not specified, the workflow remains unchanged. However, when the --server command-line argument is specified, additional control via socket is enabled, overriding events coming from the UI.

Types of changes

• Bug fix (change which fixes an issue)
• New feature (change which adds functionality)
• Breaking change (fix or feature that would cause existing functionality to change)

Checklist:

• My change requires a change to the documentation
• [ will be done in separate PR] I have updated the documentation accordingly
• I have added tests to cover my changes
• All new and existing tests passed

[w0lek]

Thanks for applying the previous comments.

I added a few comments to suggest minor improvements.

thank you, i am going to fix them, on Friday(tomorrow) or on this weekend as latest option

[w0lek]

@vaughnbetz @soheilshahrouz @AlexandreSinger
Thank you for a review and feedback, i have corrected all moments.
Please let me know if i need to correct something else.

[vaughnbetz]

Thank you @w0lek ! And thanks to @soheilshahrouz and @AlexandreSinger for the detailed reviews.
A long awaited merge ... :).