PLC programming with out IDE

It's closer to the way I'm used to working.


PLCs are not programmed with IDEs.


LOL. Thinking we're normative is one thing; hoping to find a world where we are is just so ... optimistic.



Welcome to Industrial Automation, and say goodbye to [git diff] and anything else command-line. As noted, the industry started out trying to make all electricians programmers, or at least make them able to read a program. The survival of any company in the PLC industry that used a command-line interface could probably be measured in milliseconds.



There is a .L5X/XML export option in some A-B environments, and the file is XML, so it would almost meet your spec. That is, if XML, and especially a [git diff] of two XML files, were either human- or machine-readable.


And give up on command-line, although one option that might work is a RaspberryPI (putting on my helmet and moving into my air-raid shelter). There may be environments where this may be possible, but they are probably proprietary and not passed to customers, other than the occasional C/C++ Add-On capability.



Anyway, welcome to the forum; I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing near you.
 
Peter, I still do not see the point, after all, you are using some type of software to monitor ?
Yes, but it could easily just print out on a monitor line by line.


Back in the dark ages I programmed and debug 8086/80186 assembly language. My favorite debugger just displayed on a terminal over a RS232 port. There was a 2 or 3 line ba across the middle of the screen that had a command line and the status of the registers. Above the bar were the instructions that had been executed. Below the bar were instructions yet to be executed.
One of the best features of the history above the bar is that any time something as updated it printed was xxxx is yyyy so I didn't have to issue a command to see what a variable got updated to.


A long time ago there was some pretty good software. Now it is mostly fluff. Sure, you can see rungs light up and turn off but there is no history if it is happening quickly.


Some how we got to where we are today. Some how we managed to figure things out without an internet or forums to ask.
 
Well, this thread has brought back some memories... assembly code, PG675 programming terminals etc.

I did 6800 assembly code at college many years ago and then when I started to use Step5, STL seemed very logical. I always encourage learners to do some assembly code work as it teaches you about memory and registers. While debugging in STL you can see the registers change with every instruction executed and that leads to a deeper understanding. Writing STL from the keyboard is way faster than anything you can do with a mouse.

As for the OP, I can see why you might want to do it from a text file for a small project or to automate code generation by scripting. You can do a fair amount from SCL Source code in a Siemens environment but you still need the tools to import, compile and download it: have you looked at that?

Nick
 
The old S5 had macro's so you could automate a lot of repeated code and just change the addresses, In Mitsubishi Works you create a function block, call it as a macro although it looks like a jump to a function (or subroutine) it actually produces in-line code rather than an actual jump. so in effect is a function with a different instance but inside the program block and not outside.
 
Have a look at Phoenix's PLCnext. I'm still trying to get some more information on it from my Phoenix guy. It runs an open linux OS and the controller can be programmed in IEC 61131-3, C++, C#, and Java. It has I/O available and supports ProfiNet natively. On the IT side it will do things such as http, https, FTP, SNTP, SNMP, SMTP, SQL, MySQL and DCP. The examples have very basic web server and UI stuff, but given the above, I think you could do some pretty powerful visualisations and interfaces with it.


These are the types of products I have been waiting years for on the market. The software is free, so go grab a copy and have a poke around.... Then come back and tell me how good it is, because I never find the time to do these things myself :ROFLMAO:
 
These are the types of products I have been waiting years for on the market. The software is free, so go grab a copy and have a poke around.... Then come back and tell me how good it is, because I never find the time to do these things myself :ROFLMAO:


100% agree.
 
Yes, but it could easily just print out on a monitor line by line.


Back in the dark ages I programmed and debug 8086/80186 assembly language. My favorite debugger just displayed on a terminal over a RS232 port. There was a 2 or 3 line ba across the middle of the screen that had a command line and the status of the registers. Above the bar were the instructions that had been executed. Below the bar were instructions yet to be executed.
One of the best features of the history above the bar is that any time something as updated it printed was xxxx is yyyy so I didn't have to issue a command to see what a variable got updated to.


A long time ago there was some pretty good software. Now it is mostly fluff. Sure, you can see rungs light up and turn off but there is no history if it is happening quickly.


Some how we got to where we are today. Some how we managed to figure things out without an internet or forums to ask.


That sounds like softice to me. Many happy hours spent with it. Peter can you offer any details about the event logging you showed up the thread? Many TIA. -Reed
 
The command line is dead, long live the command line.

Have a look at Phoenix's PLCnext. I'm still trying to get some more information on it from my Phoenix guy. It runs an open linux OS and the controller can be programmed in IEC 61131-3, C++, C#, and Java. It has I/O available and supports ProfiNet natively. On the IT side it will do things such as http, https, FTP, SNTP, SNMP, SMTP, SQL, MySQL and DCP. The examples have very basic web server and UI stuff, but given the above, I think you could do some pretty powerful visualisations and interfaces with it.


These are the types of products I have been waiting years for on the market. The software is free, so go grab a copy and have a poke around.... Then come back and tell me how good it is, because I never find the time to do these things myself :ROFLMAO:


Many thanks to all who responded. This is the sort of background I was looking for. To summarize, IDE's are the dominant mode of development and the command line has atrophied virtually out of existence because there is no demand from the users for it.


I'll be taking a look at PLCnext and the Siemens environment to see if there is anything I can use there.
 

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