Copy properties

Rationale

Some software projects are composed of dozens of interconnected SCADE models. Maintaining a consistent set of settings across all projects is important, to ensure homogeneous code generation parameters or modeling rules. However, performing this maintenance by hand can be cumbersome and error-prone.

Description

This sub-command copies a selection of tool properties from a reference project to targets projects. The properties are propagated for all the configurations where they appear in the reference project. A configuration is created in the target project if needed.

The properties to consider should be specified in a configuration file (JSON):

• keys: Identifiers of the tools.

• values: Identifiers of the properties.

  When a property designates a file that can be relative to the project, prefix its identifier with @.

Note

• A tool property is saved in a project file with the name @<tool>:<property> and has a list of values. It is optionally linked to a configuration.

• Properties with default values are not stored in the project files.

• The identifiers used to store properties in a project file are not documented. To find the identifiers, tool and property, corresponding to a given setting, you can compare the project files before and after modifying this single setting. This may lead to the creation of a new property if you override the default, or the deletion of a property if you restore its default value.

For example, the following schema corresponds to the Configuration settings of KCG:

{
    "GENERATOR": [
        "GLOBAL_ROOT_CONTEXT",
        "WRAP_C_OPS",
        "MACRO_ON_ASSERT",
        "PROBES",
        "STATE_VECTOR",
        "NO_BITWISE",
        "NO_TIMESTAMP",
        "GLOBALS_PREFIX",
        "NAME_LENGTH",
        "SIGNIFICANCE_LENGTH",
        "@USER_CONFIG",
        "@HEADER",
    ]
}

Usage

usage: ansys_scade_ps_copy_properties [-h] -r <reference> -s <schema> -p <project> [<project> ...]

Ansys SCADE Power Scripts: Copy SCADE project properties

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -r <reference>, --reference <reference>
                        reference project (ETP)
  -s <schema>, --schema <schema>
                        input schema file (JSON)
  -p <project> [<project> ...], --projects <project> [<project> ...]
                        project files to update (ETP)

For example:

ansys_scade_ps_copy_properties -r Reference.etp -s MySchema.json -p P1.etp P2.etp

Resources

The next sections present the properties for the most popular SCADE tools. The corresponding schemas, to be considered as templates for your own configurations, are delivered with the package’s sources, <python>/Lib/site-packages/ansys/scade/ps/copy_properties/res directory.

Each section mentions the name of the resource template and lists all the contained properties, as they appear in the IDE, with the Project/<tool>/Settings... command.

• Code Generator
• Metrics and Rules Checker
• Reporter
• Test Tool
• Timing and Stack Analysis Tools

Alternative

There are use cases where ansys_scade_ps_copy_properties is not suitable.

For example:

• Dynamic properties: set the Code Generator target directory to ../code/<model name>.

• Review: use a text editor to review the reference project instead of the SCADE IDE.

You can set the properties of a project programmatically. The following example sets a few properties for one configuration:

from pathlib import Path

from scade.model.project.stdproject import Project, get_roots as get_projects

from ansys.scade.apitools.create import create_configuration, save_project

for project in get_projects():
    configuration = project.find_configuration('KCG')
    # make sure the configuration exists
    if not configuration:
        configuration = create_configuration(project, 'KCG')

    # set a scalar property based on the project's name
    base_name = Path(project.pathname).stem
    DEFAULT_TARGET_DIR = ''  # this is not the exact default value, it does not matter here
    project.set_scalar_tool_prop_def(
        'GENERATOR',
        'TARGET_DIR',
        f'../code/{base_name}',
        DEFAULT_TARGET_DIR,
        configuration,
    )

    # set a boolean property
    DEFAULT_DEBUG = False
    project.set_bool_tool_prop_def('GENERATOR', 'DEBUG', False, DEFAULT_DEBUG, configuration)

    # set a regular property: list of values
    extensions = ['SdyChecker', 'SnapshotApi']
    project.set_tool_prop_def('GENERATOR', 'OTHER_EXTENSIONS', extensions, [], configuration)

    # save the project
    save_project(project)

Usage: scade.exe -script <script> <project>+

Note

It is not necessary to consider the exact default value of the properties you want to set. When you provide a default different from your value, the property is always created or updated. The only impact is a larger project file size when explicitly adding properties with default values.