Patent ID: 7266489

Claim:
A method in a data processing system for determining the configuration of a digital design including a plurality of latches, said method comprising: receiving a read request; in response to receiving the read request: identifying one or more Dial instances of one or more Dials encompassed by the read request, wherein each of the one or more Dials defines a mapping between each of a plurality of different settings of that Dial and a respective one of a plurality of different Dial output values, and wherein each of the one or more Dial instances is an instantiation of one of the one or more Dials and has an output logically coupled to an associated latch set within the digital design; accessing a configuration database associated with the digital design to identify a respective latch set associated with each identified Dial instance, each latch set containing a subset of said plurality of latches; and reading, from the digital design, a latch value of each latch in the latch set of each identified Dial instance; the data processing system determining, by reference to the configuration database, a setting of each of the one or more Dial instances based upon the latch value of each latch in the latch set of that Dial instance, said configuration database specifying, for each of the one or more Dials, a mapping uniquely associating each of a plurality of different settings of that Dial with a respective one of a plurality of different sets of latch values; and the data processing system outputting said setting of each of said one or more identified Dial instances.