ALARMS – Alarms Definition Configuration

Block SymbolLicensing group: STANDARD

Function Description
The ALARMS is placed in the main project file and allows the user to configure list of alarms. Alarms are activated by the ALM or ALMI blocks. Alarms are defined in a .csv (Comma separated variable) file. The afile parameter contains the file name of the .csv file. An alarm could be activated also by the ALB, ALBI, ALN, ALNI blocks, but these blocks not use definitions in the ALARMS block.

The configuration file has the following columns:

id	…	Unique alarm reference number. The number is used in the ALM block, in archive records, etc.
level	…	The value stored into an archive record (in the level field).
archives	…	Bit field – identifies archives for recording events associated with the alarm (alarm starts, ends, acknowledges). E.g. 0 = not stored in the archive, 1 = stored in the 1st archive, 2 = stored in the 2nd archive, 4 = stored in the 3rd archive, 3 = stored in the 1st and 2nd archives, etc.
group	…	Reserved for future use, now some number (or bitfield up to 64 bits) to filter alarm’s list in HMI.
name	…	Name of the alarm; can be used as the alarm identifier, so it should be unique.
description	…	Text description of the alarm. It is possible to insert formatting characters for multilingual texts and to insert values associated with the alarm associated values) in the text, see below.

Multilingual support
REXYGEN supports multilingual alarm description. The description field must be in the form:

<lang1_ID>:<lang1 text>|<lang2_ID>:<lang2 text>|<lang3_ID>:<lang3 text>

Number of languages is not limited, but total size of the field is limited to 32765 bytes (english characters). The lang1 (language 1) is used if the user sets unsupported language. Example: let’s expect the description field in the form: cz:Přepětí|en:High voltage alarm. The user will see High voltage alarm if the language is set to en. The user will see Přepětí if the language is set to cz. The user will see Přepětí in all other cases (for example if the language is set to de, cze, EN, en-us, etc.).

Associated values
The desription field can contain special marks that is replaced by values from control algorithm – so-called associated values. The mark has the form:

%<value number>[<format>][:<number of characters>[:<precision>]]

where the format is one of the following characters:

b, B	…	binary value (string on or off is shown)
d, D	…	integer number shown as decimal string, the default value for integer types
x, X	…	integer number shown as hexadecimal string
f, F	…	real number in fix point form, the precision of it is a number of digits behind decimal point (if precision is specified)
e, E	…	real number in exponential (scientific) form
g, G	…	the same as F or E (depends on actual value), the default format for real number types
s, S	…	text string

The default type is used if the format is not specified or if the type of the value is not compatible with the specified format. More characters than it is specified is used if it is necessary to show the correct value.

Format Examples:

%2	…	value of 2nd variable (e.g. av2 in the ALM block)
%1:8:2	…	value of 1st variable (e.g. av1 in the ALM block), 2 characters behind decimal point, total 8 characters (leading spaces are used if necessary)
%1e	…	value of 1st variable (e.g. av1 in the ALM block) in exponential form

The ALB, ALBI blocks not use associated values. The ALN and ALNI maps it this way:

1	…	value of the u input
2	…	value of the h parameter (input)
3	…	value of the hh parameter (input)
4	…	value of the l parameter (input)
5	…	value of the ll parameter (input)
6	…	value of the tout parameter (input)

Remarks:

It is possible to use comma or semicolon as a separator in the .csv file. The first row with column names is optional.
Alarms (lines) in the file must be in the ascending order respect to the id.
The id must be unique including other alarming/archiving blocks (TRND, ALB, ALN, ...).
It is possible to use the internal editor (the Configure button in parametric dialog) or external tool. Internal editor generates a correct example if the .csv file does not exist.
The blocks ALB, ALBI, ALN and ALNI regard $lvl > 127$ as an event, where only its begin (nor end nor acknoledge) is stored into archives. The blocks ALM, ALMI do not implement this event function.
Alarm’s associated values are stored into alarm’s value when alarm is triggered (begin). Later changes of the associated values are not updated in an alarm window in HMI.
Alarm window in HMI can show also alarm name. It is the name of the block (without block type if it prefixes the block name) that is connected to the alarm.
The whole description string is displayed, if client sets the empty language (e.g. "").

Parameters

afile	file name of an alarm’s definition .csv file	String

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