What it the RTC_TYPE?

PLCnext Engineer
1

I can find no documentation on this in the Help file. I understand that it represents a real time clock, but it appears that nothing can be done with this type. Math is not allowed(which I would like to do), and converting to TIME isn’t allowed.

2

RTC_TYPE is simply a STRUCT data type that is built-in to PLCnext Engineer.

It is used by the [b]RTC[/b] global variable to store the system time.
You can declare other variables using this type, but this will only create a STRUCT variable containing the fields defined by that data type (HOURS, MINUTES, SECONDS, etc).

You can use the individual fields of the [b]RTC[/b] variable as inputs to arithmetic operations, and then store the results in other variables e.g. in the fields of another variable of type RTC_TYPE.
3

OK. What is the source of RTC before it become a STRUCT? Is there a UDINT somewhere that gets interpreted?

4

I’m fairly sure the RTC variable is populated in the background from a system call to the static C# (eCLR) function DateTime.Now.

Apart from the String variable that is returned from the RTC_S function, there isn't any other format of the current time available directly in IEC code from standard PLCnext Engineer functions, that I'm aware of.
5

I also see that there are some DateTime functions in tbe PLCnextBase library in the PLCnext Store that might help:

https://www.plcnextstore.com/permalinks/apps/latest/60002172000027