Timers in C# library

PLCnext Technology & PLCnext Controls
1

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?

2

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.

3

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

4

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