ppcounter

ppcounter exercises the event-counter logic and reports captured counter values.

It is primarily a measurement and self-test tool for the integrated counter subsystem rather than a generic waveform tool.

When to use it

Use ppcounter when you want to:

  • validate the integrated counter subsystem
  • inspect counter statistics after a known reference sequence
  • compare deterministic and pseudo-random counter behavior

For broader streamer and playback validation, use pptest.

Common modes

  • -test1: run the first built-in deterministic counter test sequence
  • -test2: run the second built-in pseudo-random counter test sequence
  • -check: validate the expected result of -test1
  • -c: repetition/count argument used by -test2

Examples

Run the short deterministic test sequence and print the reports:

ppcounter -test1

Run the same deterministic sequence and check the expected counters:

ppcounter -test1 -check

Run the longer pseudo-random test sequence with 1000 generated values:

ppcounter -test2 -c 1000

What to expect

The command performs the same high-level flow in all modes:

  1. reset the counter bank
  2. optionally generate a built-in test sequence
  3. stream it to the FPGA
  4. force execution
  5. latch all counter instruments
  6. print the reports

The report typically includes:

  • basic statistics
  • run-length statistics
  • packet statistics
  • short-sequence histogramming
  • autocorrelation, and optionally cross-correlation if enabled in the build