ST files and Panelview Plus

I have programs running in normal 600 and 1000 AB panelviews. I am now attempting to display and edit ST files using a 1000 plus. I cannot seem to get the panelview to enter or display an ST file?

When you reference the location in the ST file you need to have an address that looks like:

ST12:0.1

It is the ".1" that is important. The string is in a structure. the .0 part is the length. The characters start at .1.

The .1 works on the older panelviews but not the panelview plus.

A friend of mine here at work had the same problem. The only way he could display strings was to copy the string data to an array and reference the array in the PV+.

Sorry that this is just a confirmation of your problem, but that's what we found, too.

Keith

Thank you, at work tonight I will attempt to work with that. I had no clue as to what else to try.

Marvin

Hang on.. this isn't that hard. I presume that because you are mentioning "ST" files that you are using a PLC-5 or SLC-500 controller.

In the RSView ME application, each String data element shows up as three separate selectable items:

ST12:0
ST12:0.DATA
ST12:0.LEN

If you want to display the whole string, you choose "ST12:0".

If you chose "ST12:0.DATA", all that RSView ME will display is the decimal value of the first ASCII character in the string.

There are a couple of gotchas with String tags in PV+; there was a bug in an early version of RSView ME that made string arrays work improperly (only the first element could be displayed) and if you have a NULL character in the string it gets truncated.

But the fundamental "display and enter strings" function works fine.

Sorry, guys...

My bad on this one. The problem HMI was not a PV+ but a Proface. The version we used didn't correctly support the AB string data type.
In our case the PV+ handled the string data type correctly as Ken says above.

Sorry for confusing the issue.
Keith

Yes, I am using a SLC 504. I worked with it some more last night. If I use the ST12:4 address in a numeric display it will display any numbers I enter. It does not seem to display any string files at all? Is there a problem with my addressing? When I pick a tag it looks like H9\ST12_4. H9 is the name of my processor and shortcut to the it. I have tried instead of picking the tag writing it many different ways. I am beginning to wonder if my RSViewME program may be messed up? It does commonly lock the computer up when I try to save a runtime?

There is only one right way to do this, so speculation isn't going to help you.

What do you mean by this:

If I use the ST12:4 address in a numeric display it will display any numbers I enter

Click to expand...

That doesn't make sense. Numeric displays display numbers, not ASCII representations of numbers.

Your description of the tag as "H9\ST12_4" describes an RSView tag database folder and an RSView Tag.

That RSView Tag must also be defined to address the SLC-5/04 string memory register. That's probably where the error is.

If you can run the Application Manager to get a *.APA archive, then ZIP it up and post it, I'll bet the problem could be solved in minutes.