Studio 5000: Economical Addressing Question

[AutomationTechBrian]

In Studio 5000, I'm wanting to be more economical in my addressing to conserve memory. I read somewhere that DINTS are the most efficient data type, and that BOOLs are stored in the same space as a DINT. Right? So splitting up a DINT, and using the BOOLs of a DINT is the most economical way to address to conserve memory. So... what about using an Alias for each of those BOOLs. In other words, how would you make the labeling of the individual BOOLs of a DINT more user friendly?

 

[AutomationTechBrian]

Wait a minute, let me guess... Put together a User-Defined Data Type for the Bits (if used more than once) and that will compact the storage, while adding a better name to the end of the address...?

 

[JeremyM]

In Studio 5000, I'm wanting to be more economical in my addressing to conserve memory. I read somewhere that DINTS are the most efficient data type, and that BOOLs are stored in the same space as a DINT. Right? So splitting up a DINT, and using the BOOLs of a DINT is the most economical way to address to conserve memory. So... what about using an Alias for each of those BOOLs. In other words, how would you make the labeling of the individual BOOLs of a DINT more user friendly?

An overlay.

Perks include:
- access to the named target SINT/INT/DINT/LINT
- you can safely do COP to/from other SINT/INT/DINT/LINT in your project
- the bits are always exactly where you designate them
- the bits are accessible by their index
- the bits are accessible by their name
- you can pick and choose what bits get a name

https://github.com/JeremyMedders/LogixLibraries/tree/main/samples/overlays

Alias chains end up burning a good chunk of memory when more contexts are involved. Try this with a AOI:
- alias some local BOOL of an AOI to some of its input or output parameters
- create an instance of the AOI as a program-scoped tag
- alias that AOI's aliased parameters to public parameters of the program
- check the controller capacity window while doing this