Plant SCADA 2023 Generic Protocol valid variable name

[macnite]

I am using AVEVA Plant SCADA 2023 and trying to add a TIMESTAMP variable to an internal IO device known as DISK_DRIVE which uses the Generic protocol.  When I compile, I get the following error:

Bad IO Device variable (E2014)

Apparently this is because the Address "T1" is unacceptable for a TIMESTAMP data type in the generic protocol, but I can't find a reference that tells me what an acceptable address is for that data type in that protocol.  Where do I find a reference which will tell me what I can use?

[olivier_vallee · Accepted solution]

Hi @macnite, 

Variable Tags don't support the data type "TIMESTAMP". This is a data type for use in Cicode. Please see the Cicode reference for variable data types here:

https://docs.aveva.com/bundle/plant-scada/page/1130160.html

If you open up the file \Plant SCADA\Bin\Generic.dbf it contains the schema for the generic protocol address format (see extract):

TEMPLATE	COMMENT
D%U	Digital
I%U	Integer
R%U	Real
L%U	Long
S%U	String
DIGITAL%U	Digital
INT%U	Integer
REAL%U	Real
LONG%U	Long
STRING%U	String

I think can safely define this tag as a LONG, say "L1" and it will compile.

You should then be ok to use this Generic DISK device variable within Cicode in the place that requires TIMESTAMP values, since Cicode will automatically convert the LONG datatype into the expected TIMESTAMP datatype for you. See this section for more information:

https://docs.aveva.com/bundle/plant-scada/page/1130158.html

Kind regards

Olivier