Vivado Naming Conventions - Vivado Naming Conventions - 2025.2 English - UG973

Vivado Design Suite User Guide: Release Notes, Installation, and Licensing (UG973)

Document ID
UG973
Release Date
2025-11-20
Version
2025.2 English

The following are the required naming conventions when working with the Vivado Design Suite. Failing to follow these naming conventions can introduce potential risk to the design or the tool, and cause unpredictable behavior in the design flow.

  • Source files names must start with a letter (A-Z, a-z). The file names must contain only alphanumeric characters (A-Z, a-z, 0-9) and underscores (_).
  • Output files names must start with a letter (A-Z, a-z). The file names must contain only alphanumeric characters (A-Z, a-z, 0-9) and underscores (_).
  • Project names must start with a letter (A-Z, a-z). The file names must contain only alphanumeric characters (A-Z, a-z, 0-9) and underscores (_).
  • Project directory names must start with a letter (A-Z, a-z). The file names must contain only alphanumeric characters (A-Z, a-z, 0-9), tilde (~), and underscores (_).
CAUTION:
The Windows operating system has a 260 character limit for path lengths which can affect the Vivado tools. To avoid this issue, use the shortest possible names and directory locations when creating projects, defining IP or managed IP projects, or creating block designs.

The system does not support the following characters for project, file, or directory names.

  • ! # $ % ^ & * ( ) ` ; < > ? , [ ] { } ' " |
  • tab (\t)
  • return (\r)
  • new line (\n)
  • / or \ (As part of the directory or file name rather than as a path delimiter)

The directory name does not support this character.

  • . (dot as terminal character)

This file/project name does not support this character.

  • @
    Note: The Vivado IDE does not support the @ character for new file or project names. The Vivado IDE does allow an existing file on disk that uses the @ character to be added to a project. The Vivado IDE can open a project that includes the @ character in the project name. Using the Tcl Console, you can create a project with a name that contains the @ character.
Important: The Windows operating system supports spaces in directory and file names. However, you need to avoid using spaces to preserve portability of the project or files between the Windows and Linux operating systems.

The Vivado Design Suite supports the use of forward slashes (/) as path delimiters for both Windows and Linux platforms. The Windows platform only allows backslashes (\) as path delimiters.

Any characters not explicitly mentioned above are not supported for project, file, or directory names.