Xilinx BIT files and the Linux/Unix/BSD "file" command

The attached file will ID a Xilinx BIT file and tell you when it was compiled, the original NCD file name, and most importantly the chip it is for. It doesn't give a speed grade, but it gives all the other stuff.

All credit goes to the ​FPGA FAQ Question 26.

To install on a machine that already has file installed (yours probably does) you need to find your magic file. I will present what I did on a Cygwin box as an example, season to taste:

1. cd /usr/share/file/
2. rm -rf magic.mgc
3. cat /tmp/xilinx-magic >> magic
4. file -C

The last command "compiles" the magic file into magic.mgc. To make sure it all worked, you can grep -i xilinx magic* and see a few spots.

Example output:

admaras@brisingamen ~/projects/ss/trunk/vhdl
$ file */*bit
BenADDA/benadda.bit:                Xilinx BIT file - from BenADDA.ncd - for 2v6000ff1152 - built 2007/ 6/27(13:19:26) - data length 0x23d014ff
BenADDAV4/benadda.bit:              Xilinx BIT file - from BenADDA.ncd - for 4vsx55ff1148 - built 2008/01/07(15:37:49) - data length 0x1f3928ff
BenADDAV4_Clock/mybenaddaclock.bit: Xilinx BIT file - from MyBenADDAClock.ncd -for 2v80cs144 - built 2008/01/11(14:18:37) - data length 0x1652cff
BenDATAV4/bendatadd.bit:            Xilinx BIT file - from BenDATADD.ncd - for 4vlx160ff1148 - built 2008/01/11(17:53:27) - data length 0x4cf4b0ff
BenNUEY/bennuey.bit:                Xilinx BIT file - from BenNUEY.ncd - for 2vp50ff1152 - built 2008/01/10(17:14:41) - data length 0x2447c4ff

This file has been submitted to the maintainer of the file command so some day may come with a default build.