Name mangling

Suppose we have set the mangling configuration parameters as:

begin act
string mangle_chars ".:()<>[],{}""
string mangle_letter "_"
end

The mangle_chars string defines the following map:

• The first character . maps to 0
• The second character : maps to 1
• The third character ( maps to 2
• etc.

The first ten characters map to 0 to 9, and the following characters use a through z permitting up to 36 characters to be mangled.

The ACT name x.y would get mangled to:

x_0y

since _ is the prefix used for name mangling. A name like x._y would get translated to:

x_0__y

(The character used as the prefix for name mangling is repeated.)

A process name foo<6,4> would be mangled to

foo_46_84_5

The main reason for name mangling is that some commercial or third-party tools (e.g. SPICE simulators) have restrictions on characters used for signal names, identifiers, etc. Using name mangling is a systematic way to specify restrictions on the output format generated by certain ACT tools.