List of value formats

Accepted formats vary with value type. The following list contains value types and accepted formats.

Note: PI Builder reformats many cells as text. To use formulas or text concatenation in these cells, you must first change the cell format back to General.

• Dates and times

  If the value type is DateTime, you can type the time in any string format that is supported by PI AF (including PI time formats) or the .NET DateTime object. By default, PI Builder displays times in local time. Some examples of valid entries:

  *-5d

  May 12, 2009

  07 06 2010 10:00:00 AM

  09 14 2008 14:00:00

  Note: PI Builder resolves the PI time format and sends the resulting date and time to PI AF when publishing. For, example, you could enter * to specify the date and time of the publishing.

• Arrays

  When entering arrays, separate array values with a list-separation character. The list-separation character depends on your specified locale settings. For US-English, the list-separation character is the comma (,).

  For example, if you retrieve an attribute of value type Double Array, then the type cell in Excel will be set to Double[]. If that array has three members, say, 1.1, 2.2, and 3.3, then the value cell in Excel will contain:

  1.1,2.2,3.3

• Numbers with units of measures

  You can enter floating-point values (double and single) with a unit of measure (UOM), provided the definition of the attribute or attribute template specifies a UOM of the same class:

  1.4 m

  36.5 degC

  A floating point number, is a positive or negative whole number with a decimal point.

  Note: To indicate degrees (°), either spell out the word degree and unit or to use the degree abbreviation. For example, you can spell out degree Celsius or use degC; and you can spell out degree Fahrenheit or use degF.

• Strings

  Enter strings without quotes. For example:

  My Sample String

  If you include quotes, the quotes will be part of the string.

  Note: If you have a string value that Excel might interpret as different type, then preface the string with a single quote. For example, Excel will convert a string of 00045 to 45. A leading single quote informs Excel that the value is a string and its format should not be changed.

• Data references

  If the attribute has a data reference, then the AttributeValue column is empty and the data reference is specified by a configuration string in the AttributeDataReference column (see List of attribute-specific columns for data references). For data references in attribute columns, a data-reference value has a specific format (see Understand how to view data references).

• Characters in PI AF object names

  In PI AF, the following restrictions apply to object names:

  • For all names, except contacts, you cannot use control characters or the following characters: * ? ; { } [ ] | \ ` ' "

  • Leading or trailing spaces will be removed. A blank name is not allowed.

  • Maximum name length is 259 characters.

• Anything

  For an attribute whose value type is Anything, the value cell should begin with the type name, followed by a blank and then the value. For example:

  double 1.4

  Note: Though allowed, the Anything value type is not recommended.

• Enumeration sets

  If the value type of an attribute is an enumeration set, then to set the attribute value, you must specify both the enumeration set and the value from the set to use: Enter AFEnumerationValue in the AttributeType column, the name of the enumeration set in the AttributeTypeQualifier column, and the enumeration value in the AttributeValue column.

  For example, suppose you have the following enumeration set, named Materials:

  Value	Name
  0	WX12000
  1	HC15000

  To specify an attribute value of WX12000 from the set, you could use either of the following settings:

  AttributeType	AttributeTypeQualifier	AttributeValue
  AFEnumerationValue	Materials	WX12000
  AFEnumerationValue	Materials	0

  In both cases, the value of the AttributeType column must be AFEnumerationValue and the value of the AttributeTypeQualifier column must be Materials.