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Parameterized Mailboxes

We noticed that general (also called dynamic) mailboxes can hold any type of message. As long as a message matches with the expected type during retrieval, everything works seemlessly.

If it is known that a mailbox will be used with only one type of message, say string type, the mailbox definition can be parameterized. This is shown below.

   mailbox #(string) uGotMail = new(N_MSG);
   int i;
   string s;
   ...
   uGotMail.put("Hi there!");
   ...
   uGotMail.get(s); // correct 
   uGotMail.get(i); // incorrect

The usefulness of parameterized mailboxes is that in a case of a type mismatch (as in the incorrect example above), it will be a compilation error, not a runtime one.

Next time: We will probe more into SystemVerilog events and will find out how normal Verilog facilities, such as triggering an event and waiting for an event have been further enhanced in SystemVerilog.

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