Timers in C# library

lbrown@phoenixcontact.com

I need to use some Timer functionality in my C# library.  C# Timers are not supported in the PLCnext C# framework. Threading also has Timer, but this is also not supported.  As a final resort, I am trying to use TimeSpan.  This is supported, but does not seem to work. No matter how I initialize or set my TimeSpan, it is always "null".

I have a Function Block with an 

        [Input, DataType("TIME")]
        public uint tPT;

 

Setting this to T#20s in PLCnext Engineer is successful and I can see that tPT is equal to 20,000 in C# debugger.  Now I create

public TimeSpan Preset = TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(tPT);

 

The debugger shows Preset ="null".  Is there some magic I am missing?

lbrown@phoenixcontact.com

I was able to create a work around.  Since IEC TIME values get passed to C# as UINTs representing milliseconds, I was able to use the DATETIME "Tick" property.  There are approximately 10,000 "Ticks" in a millisecond, so you need to normalize the values.

 

Marcel PLCnext Team

Hi,

here you find more information about supported time, TimeSpan and how to use them.

https://github.com/PLCnext/CSharpExamples/blob/master/PLCnext_CSharpExamples/09_DateTime/FBWithDateTime.cs

Regards

Marcel

lbrown@phoenixcontact.com

Hi Marcel,

Thank you for your response.  I did some additional testing and my issue is related to the Microsoft C# debugger.  TimeSpan is a STRUCT and has several members.  For some reason the VS 2017 debugger shows it as a VAR with a value of NULL. With this knowledge I was able to get my timer function working with TimeSpan.

Thank you again for your help.

 

Thank you,

Loren