Patent ID: 7912694

Claim:
A method of simulation processing in a data processing system, said method comprising: receiving one or more HDL source files describing a digital design including a plurality of hierarchically arranged design entities, the one or more HDL source files including one or more statements describing a plurality of print events within the plurality of hierarchically arranged design entities, wherein the one or more statements specify, for each of the plurality of print events: an associated message to be conditionally presented in conjunction with results of simulation of the digital design if the print event occurs within a target design entity among the plurality of hierarchically arranged design entities during simulation of the digital design, wherein the associated message has formatting information describing a presentation format of a value of the functional signal; and instrumentation logic to detect a condition of at least one associated signal in the digital design during simulation of the digital design, and responsive thereto, to generate an occurrence of the print event within the target design entity during the simulation; and processing the one or more HDL source files to obtain a simulation executable model, wherein for a particular print event among the plurality of print events, the at least one associated signal includes a functional signal within the simulation executable model and a valid signal in the simulation executable model that is asserted for an occurrence of an associated print event to occur, and wherein the associated message of the particular print event references the functional signal but not the valid signal, wherein the processing includes: instantiating in the simulation executable model one or more instances of each of the plurality of hierarchically arranged design entities in accordance with a hierarchical arrangement described by the one or more HDL source files; instantiating within each instance of each target design entity the instrumentation logic specified by the one or more statements describing the plurality of print events; and building within the simulation executable model a data structure describing the plurality of print events defined for the simulation executable model and associating each of the plurality of print events with its respective associated message, wherein the data structure contains the associated message and its formatting information.