====== Organizing files in a project ======

There are different ways to organize the files in a complex design project. Normally one has a number
of different ''.act'' files that are combined using ''import'' directives to form the design. When an ''import'' directive is encountered, the ACT tools search for the [[language:introduction#importing_act_files|specified file]] by first looking in the current directory, followed by the directories from ''$ACT_PATH'', followed by ''$ACT_HOME''.

This means that the best way to keep imports consistent throughout a specific project is to set ''ACT_PATH'' to the root of the project directory, and then import namespaces relative to that root path. The [[stdlib:start|standard library]] is organized this way, so that all the namespaces can be accessed relative to the root of the install directory (''$ACT_HOME/act'').