Using array_pkg with std_logic_vectors and unsigned

[BjornOlsson]

At this point, when using vunit's array_pkg, it only supports integers as values. I think it would be a good thing to expand this to support other datatypes as well, such as std_logic, std_logic_vector, unsigned etc.
It would also be great if the array_pkg could support records of these data types as values.

[kraigher]

Expanding to std_logic_vector/signed/unsigned of more than 32 bits is possible and I will fix that. Arbitrary records would only be possible using VHDL-2008 generic packages, I will investigate.

[LarsAsplund]

GHDL is currently lacking support for generic packages so such a feature can't be verified in Travis. Supported by ModelSim, Riviera-PRO and Active-HDL though.

[LarsAsplund]

@BjornOlsson @kraigher Made some prototyping and the support provided by ModelSim, Riviera-PRO and Active-HDL seems solid enough to make this work. The input to a generic array package is essentially the type and the functions to convert between values of that type and the string to store on file. We can use the predefined encode/decode functions from the com package for this as well as the generators of these for custom types. A generic package would also need a slightly different API since parameters like bit_width doesn't apply to all types.

[bradleyharden]

It looks like GHDL now supports subprogram generics (albeit without default values). This should now be possible to implement. If I'm interested, should I start working on it? I can make a PR to discuss the implementation.

Also, I'd like to propose some way of retrieving a slice from an array, but I'm not sure of the best approach. Maybe new, overloaded functions get_slice and set_slice for 1D, 2D and 3D arrays?

[LarsAsplund]

@bradleyharden Note that this issue concerns the older array_pkg. We should use the interger_array_pkg as the starting point. For that reason I suggest that you start a new issue. Then I will close this one with a reference to the new

[std-max]

@LarsAsplund
I think we can close this issue, as you mentionned it refers to array_pkg whose support will be dropped in the next major release (I think I've read that somewhere?)

[LarsAsplund]

@std-max Agree.

[umarcor]

@std-max, see https://github.com/VUnit/vunit/milestone/3 and #600.