Unity Pro XL Dynamic arrays

I saw that you can set an input/output type on a DFB to "ANY_ARRAY_XXX" where x is the data type. So I'm assuming that lets you pass an array of any size. Great. I can also set this to my output. Also great.

But is there any way to dynamically set the array size at run time? Structured Text normally allows:

VAR
someArray: ARRAY[x..y] OF DINT
END_VAR

but VAR seems to only throw a "syntax error" when I use it.

Is this possible on Modicon/Schinder? Allen Bradley?

Can I just program in C++ or Java and compile it on the PLC somehow? (JK. I know you can't).

There is optional (pricy) EFB toolkit which enables C-coding.

For arrays make one big array, and on program side only expand index address to suit you needs. I think that expanding array is not possible without dowwnload.

Neat. I didn't know that it was even an option to code in C. I kind of get the feeling they won't buy it for me though. The plant has tons of money, engineering not so much. Unfortunately, Unity is owned by engineering so most things aren't approved unless there's company-wide ROI.

For now, I've been hard-coding arrays for each PLC based on the number of controlled axes. I was mainly hoping to make a DFB I could quickly copy/paste to each PLC. Some hard coding isn't the end of the world.

I spent too long on OOP style programming before jumping to PLCs. Hard coding anything makes my skin itch. Lol.

Thanks for the help, and the tip!

EFB tool start price was around 2k (€) without VAT last time when asked

You can build DFB block, but make array something like ANY_ARRAY [0..10]
Then make input (INT) to DFB which limits index for array inside your block.

You can make your blocks accept an array of any size, but where the program declares the array you have to specify the size.