User Definable Protocol OPC Server Configuration Guide

Allow user to extract data from ASCII string sent by equipment and present them as "tags" in the OPC Server. Designed for use with equipment that uses an operator command sequence. Its uses a pattern matcher to match the incoming data and extract the required information. Output is constructed with using C-style output formatting.

Channel Configuration

Protocol Definition	Path to file containing ASCII protocol definition.
Browse	Browse for ASCII protocol definition file.
Slave	Not implemented
Log Matched Pattern	Log name of matched patterns to log file.
Concurrent Device Requests	Requests are send to each device attached to this channel in parallel, without waiting for the response from the previous device. If disabled then only one request can be handled at a time per channel.
Log Unmatched data longer than	Log all unmatched data longer than specified length.

Protocol Definition Syntax

<Groups>:

<Group> ...

<Group>:

<Action> ... |

<GroupName I>[fromI, toI]

<Action> ... |

<GroupName I>[fromI,toI]<GroupName J>[fromJ,toJ]

<Action> ... |

<GroupName I>[fromI,toI]<GroupName J>[fromJ,toJ]<GroupName K>[fromK,toK]

<Action> ...

<Action>:

Poll <Output Format> |
Read <Input Pattern>

<Data Type> <Item Name> <Replacement Format> ...
Output <Replacement Format> |

Write <Output Format>

The Poll statement sends the output, it should be followed immediately by the Read statement which parse the expected response. The Poll statement is not required for unsolicited response. The Write statement is for issuing write request.

If no action is defined for a group, all matched input will be stripped from the input before other pattern matching, see StripVT100 in Vestas Wind Turbine example for stripping VT100 commands.

A line beginning with the '#' characters is treated as a comment line, the entire line is ignored. This comment line is used as the description for the next variable declared.

<GroupName>:

Name of Group

<GroupName>[First, Last]:

Name of Indexed Group

First is the first index, and Last is the last index e.g.

Turbine[1,9].Blade[1,16].Ring[1,4]

Read %u\i: Blade %u\j Ring %u\k Speed (%d) RPM

Word Speed $1

Will match inputs such as

1: Blade 1 Ring 2 Speed 456 RPM
2: Blade 2 Ring 3 Speed 654 RPM

and allow tags such as

Device1.Turbine1.Blade1.Ring2.Speed
Device2.Turbine3.Blade2.Ring3.Speed

<Data Type>:

User requested data type

<Item Name>:

Name |

Name[Length] Subnames |

Name[FirstIndex, LastIndex] |

Name[FirstIndex, LastIndex, ReadSize, WriteSize]

Name of Item

Length	The number of elements in this item. The FirstIndex is set to 0.
Subnames	A optional quoted string to define the sub name of elements in the array. e.g. [6] "Motion=3,Metric=5" $1 will use bit 3 as the motion bit, and bit 5 as the metric bit
FirstIndex	Defines the first index.
LastIndex	Defines the last index. The number of elements is (LastIndex - FirstIndex) + 1
ReadSize	Defines the maximum number of elements that can be read in one request.
WriteSize	Defines the maximum number of elements that can be written to in one request.

When defining array, Name may be omitted.

<Input Pattern>:

<Metacharacters> [<Quantifier>] ...|

Each <Metacharacter> may be followed by a <Quantifier> to specify the minimum number of matches. A trailing '\' will cause the definition to continue to the next line.

<Metacharacters>:

^	Match beginning of line
.	Match any character. .* or .+ is invalid
$	Match end of line. Must be the last character if used.
()	Grouping. Up to 200 groups can be defined.
[]	Character class. e.g. [a-z] for all lower case characters.
[^]	Not in character class. e.g. [^a-z] for all non lower case characters.
\	Quote the next metacharacter
\t	Tab
\n	New line
\r	Carriage Return
\x1B	Hex char. eg \x1A for ctr-z
\w	Match a "word" character (alphanumeric plus "_")
\W	Match a non-word character
\s	Match a whitespace character (space, tab, carriage return new line)
\S	Match a non-whitespace character
\d	Match a digit character
\D	Match a non-digit character
\o	Match an octal character (0-7)
\O	Match an non-octal character.
\h	Match a hexadecimal character (0-9,A-F)
\H	Match a non-hexadecimal character
%04d	Match four decimal digits, +, - or space
%04u	Match four decimal digits
%04o	Match four octal digits
%u	Match all decimal digits
%f	Same as [-+.0-9Ee]+
%04x	Match four hexadecimal digits
%c	Match any character
%1b	Match any 1 character
%2b	Match any 2 characters
%2s	Match any 2 characters
\a(0)	Match the device address to the previous pattern
\c(...)	See CRC/LRC/Checksum checking and generation
\i	Set the I index to the previous pattern.
\j	Set the J Index to the previous pattern.
\k	Set the K index to the previous pattern.
\l(width,offset)	Set the byte counter to the (previous pattern * width / 8) + offset
\L+	Match the number of bytes defined by \l
\p	Set StartAddress to previous pattern
\e	Set EndAddress to previous pattern
%4a	Match four non space characters

<Quantifiers>:

*	Match 0 or more times
+	Match 1 or more times

<Output Format>:

Use to C-style printf format to generate the output for transmission

%[flags][width][.precision][h]type

flags

Flag	Meaning	Default
-	Left align	Right align
+	Prefix output with + or -	Prefix with - only for negative values
0	Prefix Pad with '0'	No padding
blank(' ')	Prefix pad with blank	No blank appears
#	Prefix non zero value with 0, 0x or 0X (for o, x or X format)	No blank appears

width

Minimum number of characters in output.

precision

Maximum number of characters in output.

Treat input as a 16 bit value instead of a 32 bit value.

type

c	Single byte character.
d	Signed decimal integer.
i	Signed decimal integer.
o	Unsigned octal integer.
u	Unsigned decimal integer.
x	Unsigned hexadecimal integer using "abcdef".
X	Unsigned hexadecimal integer using "ABCDEF".
e	Real of the form [-]d.dddde[+-]ddd. Precision is the number of digits after the decimal point.
E	Real of the form [-]d.ddddE[+-]ddd. Precision is the number of digits after the decimal point.
f	Real of the form [-]dddd.dddd. Precision is the number of digits after the decimal point. Default value is 6.
g	Use f or e format, whichever is more compact.
G	Use f or E format, whichever is more compact.
s	String. Precision is the maximum number of characters printed.
b	Multiple byte character. Low byte first.
B	Multiple byte character. High byte first.
z	Multiple byte character. Low byte first. Swap Words
Z	Multiple byte character. High byte first. Swap Words
a	ASCII using 0123456789:;<=>?@

The % format may be followed by the following to use alternate output value. The default is to use the value supplied by the user (The OPC Client).

\a(0)	Device address
\c(...)	See CRC/LRC/Checksum checking and generation
\i	I index.
\j	J Index.
\k	K index.
\p(size,offset)	(StartAddress / size) + offset.
\e(size,offset)	((EndAddress + (size - 1))/ size) + offset
\l(size,offset)	((BitCount + (size - 1)) / size) + offset.
\v(index)	The index of group variable to be used. Use 1 for the first variable of the group.
\q(0)	Sequence Number + 1

<Replacement Format>:

The Replacement Format is used to construct the string value of this item. The string value is converted from the decimal string to the decimal value <Data Type> specified and stored in the <GroupName>.<Item Name>. If the $n string is prefixed by (0x, 0o, 0b or h) then (hexadecimal, octal, binary or hexstring) conversion is used. The matched group are specified in the replacement format by $n, n starts from 1. $0 is a sequence number from 0 to 65535.

The string may be prefix by the following characters to control how the input is to be interpreted.

b	Copy bytes.
B	Copy bytes. Swap each pair of bytes.
W	Copy Words. Swap each pair of words.
R	Copy Bytes. Reverse bit order. i.e. bit 0 becomes bit 7, bit 1 becomes bit 6 and etc.,
v	Expands 12 bits to 16 bits
h	The input are ASCII characters (0-9,A-Z)

Simple string operation can be performed if group n have the following prefixes

$rn	Reverse string
$x(value,start,length)n	XOR each byte from start (decimal) to start + length (decimal) with value (hex). If length is zero, then perform operation on whole string.
$a(value,start,length)n	AND each byte from start (decimal) to start + length (decimal) with value (hex). If length is zero, then perform operation on whole string.
$o(value,start,length)n	OR each byte from start (decimal) to start + length (decimal) with value (hex). If length is zero, then perform operation on whole string.
$e(start,length)n	Extract start (decimal) to start +length (decimal) from string. If length is negative then shorten string by -length.
$t(pos,from,to,length)n	If the character at pos (decimal) at is equal to from (hex) then change it to (hex). If length is zero, then perform operation on whole string.
$+(length)n	Lengthen string by length (decimal).

Simple arithmetic operation on single value can be performed if group n have the following suffixes.

+offset	Add offset to value
-offset	Subtract offset from value
*factor	Multiple value by factor
%factor	Divide value by factor
&factor	Remainder of value after dividing by factor

Timestamping Data

The Date data type will timestamp all subsequent tags with input date string. See csvtime.def for an example of timestamping data from a csv file. The minus character should not be used as separator.

Example of date usage in which the time of day is given in the number of half hour starting from 1. $2/$4 could be the year (year greater than 1000)
Date Time $2/$3/$4 0/$5-1*30/0

Device Initialization Sequences

Groups defined before and including the GroupNamed "Begin" are automatically used as the device initialization sequences when the device is first opened.

Message Header and trailer

All messages may have a predefined header and trailing sequence of characters, by defining the following at the beginning of the definition file.

STXPOLL	Header for Poll messages
STXREAD	Header for Read and Peek messages
STXWRITE	Header for Write messages
ETXPOLL	Trailer for Poll messages
ETXREAD	Trailer for Read and Peek messages
ETXWRITE	Trailer for Write messages
STX	Header for Poll, Read, Peek and Write messages if a specific one is not defined
ETX	Trailer for Poll, Read, Peek and Write messages if a specific one is not defined
ConvertToASCII	Convert input to space separated ASCII values

See Modbus Master RTU for an example.

Device Configuration

Address	Address of Device. Can be use to output device address or parse input device address. See \a metacharacter.

Protocol Definition Files

Accuray 1180M

Avtron K936

Durant Ambassador Series Count Control Model 57601-400.

Modbus Master RTU

NEG Micon Wind Turbines

Symbol LS4071 Barcode Scanner

Red lion web server

VESTAS Wind Turbines

Weigh-Tronix Model WI-120 Indicator

Toshiba LCU/SFC OPC Server

Data from Multimeter QM1538 with RS232 inteface

ASCII Driver FAQ

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Last updated: Thu, 16 Jun 2022 08:02:02 GMT