Reverse bit order on VHDL

Question

I'm having trouble doing something like

b(0 to 7) <= a(7 downto 0)

when I compile it with ghdl, I have an order error. The only way I have found to make my circuit work is the following:

library ieee;
use ieee.std_logic_1164.all;
entity reverser is
    port(
        a: in std_logic_vector(7 downto 0);
        y: out std_logic_vector(7 downto 0);
        rev: in std_logic
        );
end reverser;

architecture rtl of reverser is
    signal b: std_logic_vector (7 downto 0);

begin

    b(7) <= a(0);
    b(6) <= a(1);
    b(5) <= a(2);
    b(4) <= a(3);
    b(3) <= a(4);
    b(2) <= a(5);
    b(1) <= a(6);
    b(0) <= a(7);

    y <= b when rev = '1' else a;

end rtl;

Suggestions? Thanks in advance

Answer 1

That's not allowed - VHDL is so strongly typed that if you want to reverse bit orders, you have to do it explicitly.

The standard solution is to use a function (I didn't write this - Jonathan Bromley did):

function reverse_any_vector (a: in std_logic_vector)
return std_logic_vector is
  variable result: std_logic_vector(a'RANGE);
  alias aa: std_logic_vector(a'REVERSE_RANGE) is a;
begin
  for i in aa'RANGE loop
    result(i) := aa(i);
  end loop;
  return result;
end; -- function reverse_any_vector