Patent ID: 7711537

Claim:
A method of data processing in a data processing system, said method comprising: a hardware description language (HDL) compiler compiling a HDL source code file describing a design entity and including signal group directives into a simulation executable model that includes an instantiation of the design entity and signal group information based on the signal group directives, wherein said compiling includes the HDL compiler establishing, by reference to the signal group directives, membership of multiple different signal names in a signal group specified in the signal group information, wherein each of the multiple different signal names in the signal group has a unique alphabetic string; producing, from the simulation executable model, an event trace file including simulation results and the signal group information; receiving a data set including at least one entry specifying the signal group by a signal group name from the signal group directives; in response to said receiving the data set: processing the at least one entry in the data set to identify the signal group name; accessing the signal group information included in the event trace file to determine the multiple different signal names of multiple different signals that are members of the signal group; receiving a scope command indicating a reference scope in terms of the design entity instance in the simulation executable model; in response to said receiving the scope command, interpreting the at least one entry in the data set in relation to the reference scope; and presenting one or more simulation results from the event trace file associated with instances of the multiple different signals.