Altera wizard comment bug
Surely I'm not the only one seeing this bug. Since I couldn't find any other reports of the issue anywhere, I'll document it here in the hope that someone will find it in a search and corroborate my experience.
Occasionally, when using SOPC Builder to generate a NIOS II instance, the next compile of the containing system in Quartus II produces this syntax error:
Error (10500): VHDL syntax error at altpllpll_eth.vhd(227) near text "/"; expecting "entity", or "architecture", or "use", or "library", or "package", or "configuration"
Opening the offending file takes me to an autogenerated VHDL file, often describing an altpll (phase locked loop). Perhaps the high frequency of the pll file causing the error is only a result of the fact that they are the elements I'm changing a lot. In any case, the header of the file looks something like this:
-- megafunction wizard: %ALTPLL%
-- GENERATION: STANDARD
-- VERSION: WM1.0
-- MODULE: altpll
-- ============================================================
-- File Name: altpllpll_eth.vhd
-- Megafunction Name(s):
-- altpll
-- ============================================================
-- ************************************************************
-- THIS IS A WIZARD-GENERATED FILE. DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE!
--
-- 6.0 Build 178 04/27/2006 SJ Web Edition
And the offending line looks something like this;
// Retrieval info: PRIVATE: DEV_FAMILY STRING "Cyclone II"
The offence of course, is the fact that // is not a valid comment element in VHDL (as it is in C based languages). The correct comment tag is -- as used on the surrounding lines. Now I know it says at the top of the file not to edit the contents, since they are autogenerated, but in my experience changing the 4 or so offending occurrences of // to -- allows the build to continue as expected.
In my limited investigation into the issue I arrived at a potential culprit by the name of "em_pll.pl" which lives in "quartus60\sopc_builder\components\altera_avalon_pll\". That script has a bunch of references to // style comments, but I'm not about to torture myself by deciphering their code.
Since I began ignoring the "do not edit" instructions, the bug is only mildly annoying and time wasting. Nonetheless, it would be great to know if there is a workaround or a fix, or at least know that others are experiencing the same issue!