A tagged union expression (packed or unpacked) is expressed using the keyword tagged followed by a tagged union member identifier, followed by an expression representing the corresponding member value. For void members, the member value expression is omitted. For Example:
typedef union tagged {
void Invalid;
int Valid;
} VInt;
VInt vi1, vi2;
vi1 = tagged Valid (23+34); // Create Valid int
vi2 = tagged Invalid; // Create an Invalid valueIn the tagged union expressions below, the expressions in braces are structure expressions.
typedef union tagged {
struct {
bit [4:0] reg1, reg2, regd;
} Add;
union tagged {
bit [9:0] JmpU;
struct {
bit [1:0] cc;
bit [9:0] addr;
} JmpC;
} Jmp;
} Instr;
Instr i1, i2; // Create an Add instruction with its 3 register fields
i1 = ( e ? tagged Add { e1, 4, ed }; // struct members by position
: tagged Add { reg2:e2, regd:3, reg1:19 }); // by name (order irrelevant)
// Create a Jump instruction, with "unconditional" sub-opcode
i1 = tagged Jmp (tagged JmpU 239);
// Create a Jump instruction, with "conditional" sub-opcode
i2 = tagged Jmp (tagged JmpC { 2, 83 }); // inner struct by position
i2 = tagged Jmp (tagged JmpC { cc:2, addr:83 }); // by nameThe type of a tagged union expression must be known from its context (e.g., it is used in the right-hand side of an assignment to a variable whose type is known, or it is has a cast, or it is used inside another expression from which its type is known). The expression evaluates to a tagged union value of that type. The tagged union expression can be completely type-checked statically: the only member names allowed after the tagged keyword are the member names for the expression type, and the member expression must have the corresponding member type.
An uninitialized variable of tagged union type shall be undefined. This includes the tag bits. A variable of tagged union type can be initialized with a tagged union expression provided the member value expression is a legal initializer for the member type.
Members of tagged unions can be read or assigned using the usual dot notation. Such accesses are completely type-checked, i.e., the value read or assigned must be consistent with the current tag. In general, this can require a runtime check. An attempt to read or assign a value whose type is inconsistent with the tag results in a runtime error.
All the following examples are legal only if the instruction variable instr currently has the tag Add:
x = i1.Add.reg1;
i1.Add = {19, 4, 3};
i1.Add.reg2 = 4;