A check that rejects very large wires already exists in back.rtlil
because they cause performance and correctness issues with Verilog
tooling. Similar performance issues exist with the Python simulator.
This commit also adjusts back.rtlil to use the OverflowError
exception, same as in sim._pyrtl.
Fixes#588.
Before this commit, each simulation engine (which is only pysim at
the moment, but also cxxsim soon) was a subclass of SimulatorCore,
and every simulation engine module would essentially duplicate
the complete structure of a simulator, with code partially shared.
This was a really bad idea: it was inconvenient to use, with
downstream code having to branch between e.g. PySettle and CxxSettle;
it had no well-defined external interface; it had multiple virtually
identical entry points; and it had no separation between simulation
algorithms and glue code.
This commit completely rearranges simulation code.
1. sim._base defines internal simulation interfaces. The clarity of
these internal interfaces is important because simulation
engines mix and match components to provide a consistent API
regardless of the chosen engine.
2. sim.core defines the external simulation interface: the commands
and the simulator facade. The facade provides a single entry
point and, when possible, validates or lowers user input.
It also imports built-in simulation engines by their symbolic
name, avoiding eager imports of pyvcd or ctypes.
3. sim.xxxsim (currently, only sim.pysim) defines the simulator
implementation: time and state management, process scheduling,
and waveform dumping.
The new simulator structure has none of the downsides of the old one.
See #324.
Compared to tests in the repository root, tests in the package have
many downsides:
* Unless explicitly excluded in find_packages(), tests and their
support code effectively become a part of public API.
This, unfortunately, happened with FHDLTestCase, which was never
intended for downstream use.
* Even if explicitly excluded from the setuptools package, using
an editable install, or setting PYTHONPATH still allows accessing
the tests.
* Having a sub-package that is present in the source tree but not
exported (or, worse, exported only sometimes) is confusing.
* The name `nmigen.test` cannot be used for anything else, such as
testing utilities that *are* intended for downstream use.