Limiting Decimal positions

Hey guys...quick question. I have a ML1400 communicating with an HMI designed in VB.NET that controls a test sequence. My problem is that the user only wants to see the position meter displaying values with two decimal places (19.34, 0.43, etc...) The meter is reading from a float register (F11:10), but often, the number in F11:10 will have so many decimal places that the meter will not hold everything. For example:

F11:10 = 6.382947282091

Then, the meter will try to show everything, but due to size constraints, only ......2947282......... is displayed (which is essentially useless to the user).

Is there a way that I can limit the number of decimal places that the Float registers display? Or is there another way to get around this issue?

Thanks,
Dave

I bet the

I got it. It was much easier to format in VB...I was missing the "fixed" format. Here is the chunk of code...

Private Sub ReadTimer_Tick(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles ReadTimer.Tick

Dim oldvalues As String
Dim oldvalues2 As String
CurrentPosition.Read()
oldvalues = CurrentPosition.Values(0).ToString()
CurrentPositionValue.Text = Format(oldvalues, "Fixed")
RelativePosition.Read()
oldvalues2 = RelativePosition.Values(0).ToString()
RelativePositionBox.Text = Format(oldvalues2, "Fixed")

Just out of curiosity, is there a way to do this same procedure within RSLogix?

There isn't a practical way to limit the display resolution of a float within RSLogix because of the way a float is stored in computer memory. It doesn't matter how many decimal places a float has, it is always stored in the same format. When a float is displayed for viewing it is converted to a string and the string is displayed. The conversion software takes care of the display resolution then. The actual float value in computer memory doesn't change.

To compound matters, many values cannot be represented exactly as a float. 10.2 for example cannot be represented, it become 10.199999999999999 and the computer cannot get any closer. Display subroutines have sophisticated algorithms to take care of rounding and truncation of the displayed string so that you get 10.2.

interesting...thanks for the reply

Multiply your Float by 100 and store the result in an Integer, that will limit your answer to 2 decimal points, you then need to be able to set the position of the decimal point though, nothing comes for free.