Overview of the DDESuiteLinkClient object

Note: The DDESuiteLinkClient object is compatible with all FactorySuite™ 2000 version I/O Servers and components.

There is a one-to-one relationship between an instance of the DDESuiteLinkClient object and a running I/O Server. If you want to reference data points in more than one I/O Server, you must configure and deploy more than one DDESuiteLinkClient object. For example, you would need to configure one DDESuiteLinkClient object to communicate to an ABTCP I/O Server and another one to talk to the GEHCS I/O Server.

When you configure the DDESuiteLinkClient object, you can specify one or more I/O Server topics to which access is required. At runtime, all items that the Galaxy application requires for a specified topic will be updated with the latest values from the I/O Server. The rate at which the values are updated depends on how the topics were configured within the target I/O Server.

If you want to connect to a DDE I/O Server, you will need to specify login information that the DDESuiteLinkClient object will use to connect to the I/O Server.

From other objects and from scripts, you can reference the topics you configured for the DDESuiteLinkClient object. For example, you might configure the input source for a FieldReference object to reference an item for one of the topics. Thus, the FieldReference object input source would be receiving data from an I/O Server via the DDESuiteLinkClient object.

To aid in rapid application development, you can create a list of topic items that will appear in the Galaxy Browser. To do this, you will need to specify the item address and associate it with an alias attribute name. Creating the item list is not required in order to reference data from the I/O Server.

The reference syntax for a DDESuiteLinkClient object data point is:

<objectname>.<topicname>.<itemname>

OR

<objectname>.<topicname>.<attributename>

The <objectname> is the name that you choose to give to the DDESuiteLinkClient object.

Each I/O topic for a DDESuiteLinkClient object is also known as a "scan group." Runtime object attributes allow you to monitor errors related to the data quality for item values in a scan group.

Items in a scan group can be "dynamic" in that they can be created or activated dynamically during runtime.

If the I/O Server or a poke provides value, time, and quality (VTQ) data, the time stamp is retained for attribute values. Otherwise, the current time provided by the hosting AppEngine is used. If the quality for a dynamic attribute changes from GOOD to INITIALIZING, BAD, or UNCERTAIN, but the data value does not change, the current time provided by the hosting AppEngine is used.

For general information on objects, including relationships, deployment, and alarm distribution, see the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) documentation.

For information on configuration options of object scripts, attributes, or features, click Attributes Help in the Help file header.