Question

What is the difference between:

if (dataoutput[7:0] == 8'bx) begin

and

if (dataoutput[7:0] === 8'bx) begin 

After executing dataoutput = 52'bx, the second gives 1, but the first gives 0. Why? (0 or 1 is the comparison result.)

Answer 1

Some data types in Verilog, such as reg, are 4-state. This means that each bit can be one of 4 values: 0,1,x,z.

With the “case equality” operator, ===, x’s are compared, and the result is 1.

With ==, the result of the comparison is not 0, as you stated; rather, the result is x, according to the IEEE Std (1800-2009), section 11.4.5 “Equality operators”:

For the logical equality and logical
inequality operators (== and !=), if,
due to unknown or high-impedance bits
in the operands, the relation is
ambiguous, then the result shall be a
1-bit unknown value (x).