Trilogi V6.40 Build 02 I/O Shift issue

[garysdickinson]

I just started using V6.40 build 02.  I noticed in the notes on the download page that the problem with shifting I/O up/down in the I/O Table had been fixed with custom functions.

It may have been "fixed" but it is now broken.

I find that with this version that if I have 2 custom functions:

  1-ConnectNIST
  2-ReadNIST

Then highlight "1=ConnectNIST", right click and select "Shift I/O Down" then I get the following:

  1-
  2-ConnectNIST
  3-ReadNIST

Everything is correct! The labels and the custom functions moved down.  Custom function #1 is blank.  

Now I create the name and contents for the new custom function #1.  I'll call it "NewFunc".

Now if I highlight "1-" (new empty custom function), right click and select "Shift I/O Up", things go wrong.  

The I/O labels are shifted Up correctly, but the contents of the custom functions are not 100% correct:

This is what I see after the shift up:

1-ConnectNIST <- Contents of  previous 1-NewFunc  WRONG!!! I/O label was moved, the OLD custom function code has not been overwritten.

2-ReadNIST <- Contents of  3-ReadNIST   I/O labels are correct.  Everthing is CORRECT!!!

I believe that the code that moves the contents of the custom functions "UP" does not start at the right point in the array (or list) of custom functions.

Gary Dickinson

[support]

Thank you for reporting the issue. It is not a feature that is often used and probably that's why we have not received a previous report. We will certainly send this issue to the software development to check out the cause and get it fixed in the next software release.

[garysdickinson]

Yes I understand.  Buggy code is OK if only a few people use it.

Just another request,  I'm working with the NANO-10 and noted that the STATUS(18) function is documented as not being supported in the "6.30" version of the simulator.

You are up to Trilogi "6.40" build 2 and STATUS(18) is still not supported.  This further restricts the utility of the simulator.  I'd like to use STATUS(18) in production code, but can't simulate it.


As you may remember, you added STATUS(18) to work around the issue that I raised with the MD100+ PLCs:

There was no mechanism to allow TBASIC to access  multiple TIME[] and DATE[] registers without a chance that the PLC firmware will update the TIME/DATE registers between TBASIC accesses to these registers.  

The worst case TIME[] issue is at the transition from 23:59:59 to 0:00:00.  Depending on how the TBASIC code is written and exactly when it when it is executed it may "see" the time as 23:00:00 and many other wrong permutations.  

This is why I posted code that demonstrates how to work around these issues in the PLCs.  This is why Leon added the STATUS(18) functionality.  

It'd be nice if the simulator could track the good work that you've done to solve the PLC firmware issues.

Thanks for letting me rant,

Gary D

[support]

Thank you for your feedback. We have indeed added the STATUS(18) function as a result of your comments and suggestions.

However, STATUS(18) is only implemented in the newest PLC with the new processor architecture (Nano-10, FMD and F-series with the firmware version >= r70) and will not be implemented on the older T100MD+ or T100MX+ PLCs. Adding that to the i-TRiLOGI simulator may mislead the users of older PLCs to a feature that does not exists on their system and that's one reason why we have not added some hardware-dependent features to the simulator.

However as more users migrate from M-series to the FMD-series we may add that to the new release in the near future since we agree that it is a nice feature of the newest products.

[support]

Version 6.41 build 1 has been released. STATUS(18) simulation is added and SHIFT custom function bug has been fixed. Quite a few additional functions have been added to optimize it for use with the PLCs with built-in Ethernet. Have fun.