Specman e: Is there a way to print unit instance name? - specman

Question

I've built a generic agent that will be instantiated several times in the environment:
unit agent_u {
monitor : monitor_u is instance;
};
The monitor prints some messages, e.g.:
unit monitor_u {
run() is also {
message(LOW, "Hello monitor!");
};
};
I would like to add to the monitor's messages which agent instance has printed them. For example, for environment:
extend sys {
first_agent : agent_u is instance;
second_agent : agent_u is instance;
};
the desirable output will be something like that:
first_agent: Hello monitor!
second_agent: Hello monitor!
I could not find anything related to instance name in the reflection API... Is there some way to print an instance name in e?
Thank you for your help

Answer 1

printing with message() will already include the instance pointer, in your case something like:
[0] agent_u-#1: Hello monitor!
[0] agent_u-#2: Hello monitor!
you can distinguish by these #NUM.
or include "me.e_path()" in your message, which will give the full instance path:
message(LOW, me.e_path(), ": Hello monitor!");
[0] agent_u-#1: sys.first_agent.monitor: Hello monitor!
[0] agent_u-#2: sys.second_agent.monitor: Hello monitor!

Answer 2

Not sure what exactly you refer to by "the instance name", but there are several points to be aware of.
There is the predefined e_path() method of any_unit.
There is a unique identifier for struct and unit instances, consisting of the type name and a unique number, which is returned by to_string() method. This unique identifier is already printed as part of a message.
Moreover, you can use the predefined hook method create_formatted_message(), preferably together with defining your own new message_format, to customize how messages are printed. For example, you might append the result of e_path() to the formatted message string, if you wish it to automatically appear in all messages.
You can also use the short_name() hook to provide your own symbolic names to units, and those will appear in messages instead of the result of to_string().
In principle, you can also override to_string() itself, but that would have more effects than just messages printout.