Intel® Quartus® Prime Standard Edition User Guide: Platform Designer

ID 683364
Date 12/15/2018
Public
Document Table of Contents

1.5.3.2. Defining the IP Search Path with Index Files

You can create an IP Index File (.ipx) to specify a path that Platform Designer searches for IP components.

You can specify a search path in the user_components.ipx file in either in Platform Designer (Tools > Options) or the Intel® Quartus® Prime software (Tools > Options > IP Catalog Search Locations). This method of discovering IP components allows you to add a locations dependent of the default search path. The user_components.ipx file directs Platform Designer to the location of an IP component or directory to search.

A <path> element in a .ipx file specifies a directory where Platform Designer can search for IP components. A <component> entry specifies the path to a single component. <path> elements allow wildcards in definitions. An asterisk matches any file name. If you use an asterisk as a directory name, it matches any number of subdirectories.

Path Element in an .ipx File

<library>
		<path path="…<user directory>" />
		<path path="…<user directory>" />
		…
		<component … file="…<user directory>" />
		…
</library>

A <component> element in an .ipx file contains several attributes to define a component. If you provide the required details for each component in an .ipx file, the startup time for Platform Designer is less than if Platform Designer must discover the files in a directory.

Component Element in an .ipx File

The example shows two <component> elements. Note that the paths for file names are specified relative to the .ipx file.

<library>
  <component
    name="A Platform Designer Component"
    displayName="Platform Designer FIR Filter Component"
    version="2.1"
    file="./components/qsys_filters/fir_hw.tcl"
   />
  <component
    name="rgb2cmyk_component"
    displayName="RGB2CMYK Converter(Color Conversion Category!)"
    version="0.9"
    file="./components/qsys_converters/color/rgb2cmyk_hw.tcl"
   />
</library>
Note: You can verify that IP components are available with the ip-catalog command.