RSLogix500 ASCII Export Missing some addresses??

Hi all,

I am currently exporting the address database in ascii .csv format to check what addresses are being used in the ladder logic (in RSLOGIX 500). There are MANY addresses being used, however when I export the .csv file it's only finding a few.

Example:

A status bit for Battery Low is at S:5/11. When it closes, it energizes N9:13/1. Very simple and straightforward rung. However, in my ASCII .csv file there is NO mention of N9:13/1 or just N9:13 even. This is just one of MANY examples.

I've made sure that everything is set to "global" for its range.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Josh

Hi Josh,

You may want to post/attach the program with your post, it might help

Without looking at your code, there are several things that might cause this, the rest would just be a guess

What are you exporting to on your ascii? another PC? or HMI

I have all of this on my local machine. All I am doing is trying to output a list of every address that shows up at some point in the ladder logic.

Attached is the PLC code, as well as my outputted .csv file.

Thanks!


Josh

The file you posted ( .RSS) doesn't have a description/symbol or comment for N9:13/1.

yep...Mickeys correct again, you have to have discription for it to export

Ok I see what you are saying. That is absolutely bizarre!

Now, the REALLY strange part is that I HAVE had had some .csv exports actually export the address with a blank description!

Not only that, but it's a REALLY bad thing that RSLogix doesn't give you the option here, because of course if you use an address in your ladder logic you are going to want to see it exported and know about it!

I appreciate the help folks. The sad thing is that this code (as well as some 40 other files) were done by someone else. I am simply going through them to see what needs to be mapped for SCADA. Looks like I have a lot of work to do if all of these addresses require descriptions.

If anyone knows a way around that, or how to mass-add descriptions just so they export, please let me know!

Thanks

Josh

The file you posted ( .RSS) doesn't have a description/symbol or comment for N9:13/1.

Click to expand...

Then you might as well say that the programmer did not have a clue what each unidentified address was being used for, and neither will anyone else. This is an example of a very sad poor programming practice. Why would you think that converting it to a CSV file would somehow generate a description, starting with nothing?

Looking at the program, very few of the addresses are labeled. None of the rungs have any comments or titles, and about one half of the counters and timers are not labeled. The whole thing shouts "DID NOT KNOW WHAT HE WAS DOING"!

Every address used in a program should be labeled, described, or somehow identifed, no matter how trivial it seems. Even though you didn't create the original problem, it is up to you to try to fix it the best you can. Otherwise, over time it will only get worse, as more is forgotten about how the program works.

Now, is it possible that your computer has an older copy of the program, and somewhere there exists a copy that has more of the labels? That is also a common problem. An earlier version of a program (that was later modifed and expanded) may only show a few of the final symbols, descriptions, and comments.

Looking at Ladder File 3 (Alarms), every address is labeled. Now I am thinking that you have an early revision, not the final program, without all the descriptions that were added later. Some of the ones you have may even be incorrect. You need to search around to see if a later version of the off-line program exists.

Lancie1 said:

Then you might as well say that the programmer did not have a clue what each unidentified address was being used for, and neither will anyone else. This is an example of a very sad poor programming practice. Why would you think that converting it to a CSV file would somehow generate a description, starting with nothing?

Looking at the program, very few of the addresses are labeled. None of the rungs have any comments or titles, and about one half of the counters and timers are not labeled. The whole thing shouts "DID NOT KNOW WHAT HE WAS DOING"!

Every address used in a program should be labeled, described, or somehow identifed, no matter how trivial it seems. Even though you didn't create the original problem, it is up to you to try to fix it the best you can. Otherwise, over time it will only get worse, as more is forgotten about how the program works.

Now, is it possible that your computer has an older copy of the program, and somewhere there exists a copy that has more of the labels? That is also a common problem. An earlier version of a program (that was later modifed and expanded) may only show a few of the final symbols, descriptions, and comments.

Click to expand...

I agree with you 100% that the addressing scheme in general for these programs is not very good at all.

I did not expect descriptions to be generated with the .csv export, I expected the address to show up with a blank description.

Like I was saying though, I had another program open and after .csv exporting it, there WERE some addresses with blank descriptions. Any idea how that might happen?

Yeah, there is a lot of work ahead of me. In fact, those of us working on this project were planning on remapping the B3,N7,and N9 registers (the ones used for radio communication) to our own new set of N registers anyway since the scheme used here is so random (some of these addresses don't even line up with other programs we have, in instances where they SHOULD).


-Josh

Like I was saying though, I had another program open and after .csv exporting it, there WERE some addresses with blank descriptions. Any idea how that might happen?

Click to expand...

Yes, the address may have a description which consists of nothing except a space and a carriage return (Enter), which will look like a blank description. Sometimes programmers put in a blank description, with the idea of copying something there later (another poor practice). Sometimes too, a programmer may copy an address to a new location, then delete the description, but accidently leave a space and carriage return, which the computer sees as a non-blank description. I often put a space and carriage return at the end of comment lines to cause a blank line to be shown between the comment and the ladder rung. If you didn't know they were there and deleted all the visible text, that comment would still show up in the PLC program database as a blank line, and would thus be converted to a blank in the CSV file. Even on address Description labels, I often put a space and carriage return at the end of each line, so that the text does not get scrambled together on print-outs. Again, not deleting the spaces could leave a description that appears to be empty.

I suppose Rockwell thinks that there would be no point in converting an address without a description or symbol, even though the address is used in the program. I think the CSV file is supposed to be a list of the addresses that have some identification label, not necessarily the ones that are "used". That is a different database.

RSLogix reports allow printing the 'usage' views of the data tables. This will at least indicate the directly used addresses. Of course it won't show those accessed by indirect or indexed methods only. I know it's not a CSV formatted file but its something.

Good insight from everyone.

I was wondering if there was a "blank" description in there (bizarre) that was causing them to be exported...

Thank you to everyone for your help in this matter.



Josh