Environment

System Architecture

The diagram below illustrates the whole AVEVA Bocad Steel Interface system architecture. The external programs are license controlled.

Like the base product, AVEVA Bocad Steel Interface uses environment variables to refer to all folder paths. This allows the user to locate these folders anywhere on the file system. The product is supplied with a file Bocad.bat in the AVEVA Bocad Steel Interface installation folder, which sets default values for the environment variables so that they point to the folder structure as installed. It also sets the PATH variable to include the user’s work folder.

Note:
The user should not need to modify this file.

Mapping Files

There are two types of mapping files: internal and external mapping files.

Internal mapping files are prepared by the system administrator. They tell the interface where on the computer network the external mapping files may be found. The format of the internal mapping files is described in Internal Mapping Files.

External mapping files are files which determine how the interface handles the data for going to or coming from AVEVA Bocad Steel; for example, the Profile, Unicode and Material mapping files. The format of the external mapping files is described in External Mapping Files.

Overloading Mapping Files

Overloading of mapping files is permitted and may occur. This means that a file that is found in the first folder will be overwritten by a file with the same identifying characteristics, though not necessarily with the same filename (Internal Mapping Files), found later in any of the succeeding folders. For example, a project mapping file could overload a company mapping file.

The sequence of environment variables is set to the locations of the internal mapping files. The interface will search all the folders pointed to by these variables and locate all files with the suffix .map in each sub-folder called BocadMaps. The .map files will be imported during system initialization as internal mapping files. The internal mapping files then become the basis for locating the external mapping files.

However, this does not alter the search rules for the external mapping files as based on the content of the identification line in the internal mapping file.

The diagram below illustrates how these environment variables may be used to select and overload sets of internal mapping files.

You do not have to use all three defaults variables.

Relationship between Internal and External Mapping Files

For the purposes of this section, the variable BOCDATA is assumed to have been set up in the user's system initialization process to point to the folder containing the external mapping files.

The environment variable BOCDATA should point to a single folder only. This variable may be made to be project specific, so that the internal mapping files may be kept unchanged, but the user will be able to pick up mapping files from a project-specific location.

Note:
BOCMAPS is not a variable specifically required by this interface.

You should take care in using environment variables in internal mapping files, as a recursive scan is not performed at this level. In this case the variable must point to only one folder.