S7 Parameter Tracking ...

deemz · Oct 7, 2009

Here's my problem: I need to track parameters such as setpoints in about 100 S7-300 PLC programs that I receive back from suppliers and unfortunately the structure of our DB blocks is such that these parameters that I want to track are mixed in with values that change at runtime so using Simatic Manager's built-in compare utility is hopeless.

I found a thread on here about S7XP that seems like it would solve my problem. Unfortunately, it looks like this software is no longer available.

What I am looking for is a way to compare different revisions of off-line code and detect parameter changes and display them in a clear and simple format.

Is there any utility out there that I could do this with?

I'm thinking if there was any way that I could "suck up" DB values from the offline code itself without actually running it on a processor to a csv, I could write macros in excel to do this kind of comparison easily. Is that even a possibility?

Thanks

PeterW · Oct 7, 2009

I've used a text compare tool like Beyond Compare before now, just need create two text files by converting the older and new versions of the code to source files.

http://www.scootersoftware.com/moreinfo.php

Thomas_v2 · Oct 7, 2009

Step 7 has a "command interface" which allows you to control the Step 7 functions from an external application.

What you can do with this:
- Download all DBs from CPU into your offline project
- Automatically export Datablocks to AWL sources

I would use a versioning system like SVN (Subversion) and checkin the source files into the versioning system.
Or you can use a simple command line tool like unix "diff", which is also available for windows, to find differences between the DB versions.

Here's a sample code in C# which exports all DBs:

Code:

        static void exportDBs(string projectName, string programName)
        {
            Simatic S = new Simatic();
            string filename;

            Console.WriteLine("Blocks overall: " + S.Projects[projectName].Programs[programName].Next["Bausteine"].Next.Count);

            foreach (S7Block bl in S.Projects[projectName].Programs[programName].Next["Bausteine"].Next)
            {
                if (bl.ConcreteType == S7BlockType.S7DB)
                {
                    filename = "C:\\Temp\\export\\" + bl.Name + ".awl";
                    Console.WriteLine("Exporting source to: " + filename);
                    try
                    {          
                        bl.GenerateSource(filename, S7GenerateSourceFlags.S7GSFDoOverwrite);
                        
                    }
                    catch (Exception ex)
                    {
                        Console.WriteLine("Error: " + ex);
                    }
                }
            }
        }

S7 Parameter Tracking ...

deemz

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PeterW

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Thomas_v2

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