[Bug] .ini file not found for Questa Base

[loecke-ws]

Since merging #1170 Questa Sim Base 2025.1 fails with the following message:
FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'C:\\questa_base64_2025.1\\questa.ini'

The install directory does contain a questasim.ini (and a modelsim.ini), but not a questa.ini. Renaming works as a workaround.

My guess is that questa.ini is used in the newer Altera versions and questasim.ini in at least the Base edition (though I don't know other versions). Therefore VUnit cannot assume questa.ini exists when detecting the -ini flag, but should check which of the files exists (questa.ini, questasim.ini, modelsim.ini).

[LarsAsplund]

Ok, I will add that. Instead of renaming you can also set VUNIT_MODELSIM_INI, see https://vunit.github.io/cli.html#simulator-specific

[loecke-ws]

Thanks. VUNIT_MODELSIM_INI should also work, yes. For other ModelSim / QuestaSim versions it is sufficient to add them in PATH or VUNIT_MODELSIM_PATH without specifying the .ini. That's why I think it should work with Questa Base too (as it did before).

[LarsAsplund]

I'm also thinking about a solution that can manage other naming schemes. Historically, we've seen that vendor versions tend to work slightly different than the main versions and we could possible see other names in the future. One approach is to look for the mainstream names and than switch to an approach looking at the content of the ini files rather than the name. For example:

• If the help has a -modelsimini but no -ini option, we expect an modelsim.ini file
• If -ini is supported, we look for questa.ini.
• If questa.ini doesn't exist, we accept any ini file that has a library path defined for the std lib

[LarsAsplund]

@loecke-ws I've updated how we handle the INI filed in https://github.com/VUnit/vunit/tree/feature/finding_ini_file. Please try it on your use case. The idea is that it will look for "standard" INI file names first and then, if that can't be found, find any INI file in the installation which looks like Questa/Modelsim INI file. Such a file must have a .ini extension, pass the configparser parser, and have a Library section.

[loecke-ws]

@LarsAsplund Thank you very much. I can confirm that it works. I tested with the following versions:

• QuestaSim Base Edition-64
  Version 2025.1 win64 Jan 17 2025

• Questa Intel FPGA Edition-64
  Version 2024.1 win64 Apr 19 2024

• Questa Intel Starter FPGA Edition-64
  Version 2023.3 win64 Jul 17 2023

• ModelSim - INTEL FPGA STARTER EDITION 2020.1
  Revision: 2020.02
  Date: Feb 28 2020

[LarsAsplund]

Ok, then I will merge it (#1198)