For static footprint files it is good practice to include footprint version information in metadata. This helps the user compare board-embedded versions of the footprint to library versions. Version information should be included both for hand drawn footprints and generated footprints in case the generated footprint file is saved and used/distributed as static file footprint.
The format of the version string is arbitrary, but generally should be computer sortable. For bedrock-rnd the preferred format is
year-month-daysuffix
where year is a 4 digit year, month is a two digit month, day is a two digit day-of-month and suffix is a single lowercase letter between 'a' and 'z'. For example: 2025-04-21c
In case of parametric footprint the output should not contain footprint version information but the generator field (as specified in chapter 2.3).
Once licenses are chosen, the following metadata (see chapter 2.3) should be set:
key | importance | value (purpose of the key) |
---|---|---|
version | recommended | user assigned version number |
uuid | optional | only if the file format does not have an uuid field natively: a suitably long string of printable ASCII characters which shall be globally unique; only used in static file footprints; helps tracking back footprints in case of name collisions; a suitable tool for generating UUIDs is minuid, installed with sch-rnd at $PREFIX/lib/sch-rnd/minuid; a new version of a static file footprint must have a new uuid value |
Note: the lihata file format does have an uid field which is compatible with uuid so lihata footprints should not have an uuid key in metadata. Since the tEDAx file format does not have metadata and comments are not preserved when the footprint is placed on board, uuid in tEDAx can help in footprint file identification but will not help in board vs. footprint comparison.