TSTAMP (aka UUID) function / Collaborative ID?

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Hi,
I am thinking about programmatically changing a lot of footprint descriptions so they play better with some search engine logic I use. But what is up with the tstamp valies? They look more like UUIDs.

My guess is a collaborative KiCAD is in the works, which would be nice. But if I edit the footprint descriptions in my libraries should I change the tstamp values?

Thanks
Bob K.

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IIRC tstamps used to be timestamps in the past but at some point they were changed to UUIDs. Just needs something unique. If you look at some very old footprints, they have the old timestamps.

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Wishlist but absolutely nothing to do with it.
tstamp is a legacy field name that is renamed in v8.

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Thanks,

I just could not guess why it was there and everywhere! I will ignore it for now.

I have V7 loaded, I will need to take a look at ver 8.

Thanks,
Bob K.

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Also, these UUID’s are used to match schematic symbols with PCB footprints. This is the normal method in KiCad. It is possible to use the RefDes to match symbols with footprints, but that is a secondary method and meant to repair a project if the UUID’s got out of sync somehow.

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Paulvdh,

Thank you. I had not considered the idea of using the UUID as an index to a footprint.

Right now I am sorting out what I want to do for footprint indexing. I read all the footprint and placed them in a DB table. I noticed all footprint names are unique across all libs. That is good. On the downside a LOT of footprints don’t include the pin count in their name. A full footprint description is spread over Lib Name, Footprint Name and the Description. I am a little “Bummed Out” there. I use descriptions to feed a search engine so I want good complete descriptions.

I have my existing lib of 3400 footprints which I could rename but not to something less optimal than what I have now. I am considering a simple conversion table that grows “Gracefully” through use.

Thanks,
Bob K.

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