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Several questions about 4diac & Forte [message #1807072]

Wed, 22 May 2019 04:23

Eclipse User

1. Can we reference any dll and call api in ST?
2.Can we debug ST anywhere or just by monitor& watch the output result?
3.Can you plz provide more information about service sequence
4.Can you talk about any difference between 4DIAC and CodeSys?

Thank you very much!

Re: Several questions about 4diac & Forte [message #1807153 is a reply to message #1807072]

Thu, 23 May 2019 15:22

Eclipse User

Hi,

ad 1) in general I would say no. In IEC 61499 we have service interface FBs which are programmed in Eclipse 4diac in C++ this is, if I understand you correctly, the better way to do this in Eclipse 4diac.

ad 2) Currently within 4diac IDE yes. However you can debug the resulting C++ code if you like.

ad 3) Currently service sequences are mainly used for documentation purposes. Also the Editor for service sequences in Eclipse 4diac is not very good.

ad 4) From a high level view there is not much difference. Both are systems for programming and executing real-time PLC programs. However CodeSys implements the IEC 61131-3 and Eclipse 4diac IEC 61499. Altough the latter bases on IEC 61131-3 there are significant differences (e.g., IEC 61499 features an event based execution and is for distributed control systems). For more details please have a look in the articles and books on IEC 61499 [1] and IEC 61131-3

I hope this helps,
Alois

[1] https://www.amazon.de/Modelling-Control-Systems-Using-Engineering/dp/1849197601

Re: Several questions about 4diac & Forte [message #1807185 is a reply to message #1807153]

Fri, 24 May 2019 05:46

Eclipse User

It's my hornor to get reply from you, Mr. Zoitl, i read your book before,very excellent
1.You mean, that i should export the new function block to c++file, import the dll and compile it with forte source code ? That cost too much time and seems a little bit complex. Can we just do this just in 4Diac IDE more efficently?
In codesys, can just reference dll and call api directly in ST language.
2. i didn't see any document or help about debugging ST, such as breakpoint, step over and so on.
3. you mean now service doesn't make sense till now?
4. There are a supported PLC list of device here :https://www.eclipse.org/4diac/en_rte.php
would you plz tell me why some devices are supported and others(siemens, Mitsubishi,omror) are not?

Re: Several questions about 4diac & Forte [message #1807190 is a reply to message #1807185]

Fri, 24 May 2019 07:14

Eclipse User

Hi,

thank you for your feedback. I happy that my book helped you.

as 1) Currently we don't have a good infrastructure for using DLLs with 4diac FORTE. Espcially calling something outside of FORTE from ST. I think the basic infrastructure could be there but I think this would require some work and tests. Also at this point we always have to create C++ code for your FBs and re-compile 4diac FORTE. Which is not very user friendly. You may have seen that we have a Google Summer of Code project running with targets to improve the situation. Jan, the student working on the project, is happy to get feedback where the problems of Eclipse 4diac are here.

ad 2) Yes you are right. You have to debug the resulting C++ code. This is more suitable for experts. As said we currently have no means for that on ST/FB level. We are happy if you want to support us here.

ad 3) Currently service sequences are mainly used for documentation purposes. We have done some experiments where we modeled test cases or interface behavior for model checking in service sequences. We plan to expand here in the next releases.

ad 4) In order to use 4diac FORTE on a devcie 4diac FORTE has to be ported to that device. This requires at first an API from the device vendor to access the device and its IOs. The main work is most often to implement the IO access. The current list is the devices which we had access to and which we used in our work. We would be happy to expand that list and add more ports to our repository.

BR,
Alois

Re: Several questions about 4diac & Forte [message #1807193 is a reply to message #1807190]

Fri, 24 May 2019 08:33

Eclipse User

Mr. Zoitl, i'm so glad you give me a so quick response.
I read the news of the student will do some work with Lua totally support， dynamic compling is good, no more exporting *.cpp files and long time compling forte is also good, but i don't think lua will solve the most important things,
such as some global virable, device, object declare and using, dll importing/reference. debugging integrated source code easily, compling that without whole forte sourcecode(that cost long time),
function block is the key point for resuse, but if it is hard to produce and debug, then mean what? That is from my point of view :)

Re: Several questions about 4diac & Forte [message #1807221 is a reply to message #1807193]

Fri, 24 May 2019 15:11

Eclipse User

Hi,

thanks for your feedback. Feedback like yours help us to target our future development. However I have to point out that we will definitely not provide global variables. IEC 61499 does not allow global variables and that is good so.

Cheers,
Alois

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