Re: Minutes from John

Hi Shabtay and John,

regarding the excerpt of Section F.8.3:

> _There are functions that allow the user to retrieve and manipulate the 
> current operational scope. It is an error to use these functions with any
> C code that is not executing under a call to a DPI context imported task or
> function._

It seems to me this section talks about a specific subset of the
utility functions, namely those that `retrieve and manipulate the
*current* operational scope'.  This would include

   svGetScope()
   svSetScope()

However, the rest of the utility functions does not seem to be covered
by that paragraph:

   svGetNameFromScope()
   svGetScopeFromName()
   svPutUserData()
   svGetUserData()

All these do not necessarily manipulate the current operational scope.
I think it is these four that would be really useful to have.  I still think
the SV standard is at best ambiguous as to whether these are allowed
outside an imported function context.  From an implementation point of
view I have a hard time justifying why these could not be easily implemented
such that they work anywhere.

I know the last paragraph on p. 585 (section F.8) does seem to forbid
all of these functions, although it is also vague because they just talk
about a `small set of utility functions' without being specific about
what they are.  In any event, this paragraph could be seen as conflicting
with the paragraph from Section F.8.3 depending on how you interpret
the text.

In summary, I think Shabtay's idea of talking some more to the SV gurus
is a good idea here.  This text ought to be clarified.  Ideally it should
explicitly state that the four functions I listed above should be
callable from anywhere. svGetScopeFromName() may have to be restricted
to after elaboration, which automatically restricts the others since you
wouldn't be able to get a scope before elaboration anyway.

Per