Controller time stamp

ABCIP Communication Driver has the capability to time stamp data changes with the controller’s date and time as opposed to the PC’s date and time. A new item syntax to time stamp data changes with the controller’s date and time must be used.

Note: Controller Time Stamping is supported only in the Allen-Bradley Logix-family of controllers, version 16.x or later.

Important: The "TimeTag" in the controller must contain date and time as LINT type in UTC format. The logic behind the association between the specific DataTag & TimeTag pair is assumed to be user-defined in the controller program.

Specifying controller time stamping in native InTouch requires the time-stamping qualified DataTag plus both of its Date and Time Dotfield string tags.

The following sequence shows the Tagname Dictionary and the sample items.

• DataTag: Can be almost any type including boolean, integer, string, and array. In the example, the Value tag is an integer for illustration purposes only.

• TimeTag: Must be string type.

When you enter an item name on the client side, you must enter an item name that is a Data tag and Time tag pair. You will use the "&T&" delimiter, to identify the time tag.

For example if you enter an item name such as DataTag&T&TimeTag, the Communication Driver will treat the item as two separate tags, "DataTag" and "TimeTag", and will validate each tag separately.

DataTag example "TimeStamp1":

Integer_Recipe(0)&T&TimeStamp(0)

TimeTag example, concatenated:

TimeStamp1.TimeTimeString+""+TimeStamp1.TimeDateString

The Communication Driver will read the data for the two tags from the controller.

When the pair of values is read by the server, the TimeTag value will be used to time stamp the DataTag value before sending the updates to the client.

If you enter an item name such as DataTag only, the value read from the controller is time stamped with the PC’s date and time before sending the updates to the client.

Note: When advising an item using timestamping with "&T&", and communication is lost with the controller, the Communication Driver will timestamp the item and update its quality.