2.2. Starting ESE

ESE is invoked by entering

    % ese

at the command line prompt (%). This will start the application and open the main window (Chapter 3) of the combined SCE graphical user interface (GUI).

2.2.1. Scripting

ESE supports scripting of the complete environment from the command line without the need to invoke the GUI. For scripting purposes, a GUI-less command shell of ESE can be invoked by entering

    % scsh

at the command line prompt (%). This will start the ESE shell without the GUI layer. Instead, a prompt (>>) is offered to enter commands that allow to drive the ESE environment interactively (or from ESE shell scripts read from files supplied on the scsh command line).

The ESE shell is based on an embedded Python interpreter. As such, it conforms to Python syntax and the full semantics of the Python language is available. In addition, the ESE shell extends the Python interpreter with an API for access to ESE functionality. However, the ESE shell API only provides undocument low-level access to ESE internals for developers.

For user-level scripting of ESE by designers, a complete set of high-level scripts on top of the ESE shell are available. The set of scripts provides a convenient command-line interface for all necessary ESE functionality . Together with command-line interfaces to model refinement tools and to the SpecC compiler , complete scripting of the ESE design flow from the command line, through shell scripts or via Makefiles is possible.

2.2.2. Environment Variables

HOME

Determines the location of the user's home directory and consequently the default path to the file with user-specific application preferences ($HOME/.ese/eserc).

ESERC_PATH

Determines the list of directories where files serrc with user-specific application preferences are stored. Multiple directories can be provided, separated by colons (":"). Directories are searched for and preference files are read in the given order, i.e. preference files in later directories can override settings in earlier ones. Modified preferences will be written to the first directory in the list that is writeable by the user.

If ESERC_PATH is not set, the location (directory) of the user-specific serrc file defaults to $HOME/.ese.