More fun w/strategy tag names - GetValueFromName options

This example is meant to show alternatives to the GetValueFromName command. That command takes the name of a tag/variable (as a string) and returns a string representation of that tag’s value.

However, GetValueFromName uses scientific notation for float values, which might not be what you want.

Also, you may want to format the value based on some naming convention you set up for your tags (rather than the type of tag). This shows how you might look for a substring in the tag name and use another formatting method, like hex.

Here’s the OptoScript:


// initialize some values
stSomeTagNames[0] = "fMyFloat";
stSomeTagNames[1] = "aiMyStoreTemp";
stSomeTagNames[2] = "Two";
stSomeTagNames[3] = "nMyTagType";
stSomeTagNames[4] = "fTagWithTypeInName_non_Int32"; // test the "error handling"
 
// Loop through all the tags we care about for this
for nTagIndex = 0 to 4 step 1
 
  // see if this tag as the word "Type" in it, if so we're going to format the value as hex
  if (FindSubstringInString("Type", 0, stSomeTagNames[nTagIndex]) >= 0) then // "Type" is in the name
 
    // here we're making the assumption that if this tag has Type in the name then 
    // it's an int32 type
    GetPointerFromName(stSomeTagNames[nTagIndex], pInt32);
 
    if (not (pInt32 == NULL)) then // in was an Int32, we want this in hex    
      NumberToFormattedHexString(*pInt32, 8, stSomeTagValues[nTagIndex]);          
    else
      // do some kind of error handling
      stSomeTagValues[nTagIndex] = "???? " + stSomeTagNames[nTagIndex]; 
    endif
  else
    // Check the type of the tag named in the list
    nMyTagType = GetTypeFromName(stSomeTagNames[nTagIndex]);
 
    // We don't care if it's persistent or local, so let's toss those bits (30 & 28)
    nTypeMask = 0xFFFFFFFF;
    nTypeMask = BitClear( nTypeMask, 30 );
    nTypeMask = BitClear( nTypeMask, 28 );
    nMyTagType = nMyTagType bitand nTypeMask; 
 
 
    if ((nMyTagType == 0x00800002) or  // we have a we have a float type, 
        (nMyTagType == 0x00020010)) then // or analog point, let's format this one ourselves
 
      if (nMyTagType == 0x00800002) then // it's a float, use the float pointer
 
        GetPointerFromName(stSomeTagNames[nTagIndex], pFloat);
        FloatToString(*pFloat, 10,3, stSomeTagValues[nTagIndex]);
 
      else // we have an analog value, not sure if it's input or output
        // most likely for this application, it's an input, let's try that first
        GetPointerFromName(stSomeTagNames[nTagIndex], pAin);
 
        if (not (pAin == NULL)) then // we have an input
          FloatToString(*pAin, 10,3, stSomeTagValues[nTagIndex]);
        else // try getting it as an analog output
 
          GetPointerFromName(stSomeTagNames[nTagIndex], pAout);
 
          if (not (pAout == NULL)) then // in was an output      
            FloatToString(*pAout, 10,3, stSomeTagValues[nTagIndex]);          
          else
            // do some kind of error handling
            stSomeTagValues[nTagIndex] = "???? " + stSomeTagNames[nTagIndex]; 
          endif
        endif // checking for analog points
      endif // we had a float or analog value
    else
 
      nResult = GetValueFromName(stSomeTagNames[nTagIndex], stSomeTagValues[nTagIndex] );
 
      if (nResult <> 0) then
        // do some kind of error handling
        stSomeTagValues[nTagIndex] = "???? " + stSomeTagNames[nTagIndex]; 
      endif
 
    endif
  endif
 
next 

Attached find 9.3 PAC Control basic example…

-OptoMary

GetValueFromNameV1.0.zip (3.52 KB)

p.s.

A note of caution on using this (and other GetXFromName) commands – they’re not necessarily a good idea for a huge system in a chart that needs to be fast, since the lookup takes some time.

For example, this code took on the order of milliseconds to execute. When I ran that 5-tag lookup x 1000 times, it took about 6 seconds total (on my R1, in debug mode, closer to 4 seconds when NOT running PAC Control’s debugger).