Forwardslash in Net Names?

[Forgotten_Machines]

I’m finding that several of my Net Names have forwardslashes in front of them, even though when I created them I’m certain I didn’t put the forwardslash there, it must have been auto generated.

Any idea what it means?

Thanks,
Best,
AJ

[bidrohini]

As far as I know, the forward slashes before net names in KiCad are used to indicate a hierarchical structure in the design. In hierarchical designs, a forward slash (/) is used to separate the different levels of the hierarchy.

For example, suppose you have a hierarchical design where the top-level sheet is called “main” and it contains two sub-sheets called “sheet1” and “sheet2”. If you create a net in “sheet1” called “net1”, its full name would be “main/sheet1/net1”.

[Forgotten_Machines]

OK, from a design point of view that makes sense. And yet, that brings up 2 more questions.

1. Why is there nothing before the “/” [backslash] to indicate what the root level is, and

2. How would I have accidentally created these?

Thanks everyone,

Best,
AJ

[qu1ck]

From Schematic Editor | 7.0 | English | Documentation | KiCad

Remember that net names must include the full sheet path. For example, a locally labeled net in the root sheet has a name prefixed with / .

[Forgotten_Machines]

Blockquote

@qu1ck

Remember that net names must include the full sheet path. For example, a locally labeled net in the root sheet has a name prefixed with / .

OK, thanks for repeating this. So, the commonality is the net names that I created directly on the PCB editor vs pushing them to the PCB from the schematic using Tools → Update PCB From Schematic?

[der.ule]

If your schematic consist of only a sheet it is the root sheet, the root sheet in a hierarchical schematic would be the one that is not contain by any other sheet (or the one the contains or the others, depending on how you want to look at it)

So all the locally label nets on the root sheet, will have the name /netname, /netname1, /netname2 … etc, those created in hierarchical sheets would have the name /hierarchicalsheetname/netname1, /hierarchicalsheetname/netname2, etc.

There won’t be any net simply named “net1”, “net2”, “net3”

[craftyjon]

@der.ule

There won’t be any net simply named “net1”, “net2”, “net3”

Well, there will be if these are global nets. So if you create just a single sheet, but always use global labels instead of local labels, you’ll get names without the slash.

[Forgotten_Machines]

OK, so the answer is Local nets have the “/”, and Global nets don’t. I really like that, thank you.

@craftyjon

Well, there will be if these are global nets. So if you create just a single sheet, but always use global labels instead of local labels, you’ll get names without the slash.