Answer: CppAgent implements the observer pattern in which an object maintains a list of observers, and notifies them automatically of any state changes, by calling one of their methods. The observer pattern is based on the signal software of the dlib library.
To implement a DataItem observer in software you need to derive a class from the ChangeObserver class and override the virtual method, signal(), for example:
class BusyObserver : public ChangeObserver
{
public:
BusyObserver(tstring name, DataItem * item) : _id(name), _item(item){}
void signal()
{
Logger<< FATAL << _id << "Updated " << nowtimestamp() << std::endl;
}
tstring _id;
DataItem * _item;
};
You can write one superclass to derive from ChangeObserver or have per data item class definitions to handle data changes. Once you have the class you need to register it with the actual DataItem so that it can notify an instance of the observer class that a change of state has occurred.
Device *dev = config.getAgent()->getDeviceByName(devicename);
DataItem *di = dev->getDeviceDataItem("Xabs");
BusyObserver * observer = new BusyObserver("Xabs", di)
di->addObserver(observer);
To attach an observer, you will need to access the agent, which contains a list of devices, and inside each device is a list of data items, from which the data item is retrieved. Once you have the data item, you create an new instance of your observer class, and add it as an observer to the data item. There is a corresponding ability to remove the observer also:
di->removeObserver(observer);
Note: ChangeObserver method signal() was made virtual to all override.
virtual void signal() { mSignal.signal(); }
Posted: John Michaloski Tue 08/09/11 12:11:38 PM
Answer: Internally, CppAgent implements an http “post/put” listener for Clients to read samples/events/conditions but also has support for updating DataItems. The POST HTTP method is used when the client needs to send data to the server as part of the web page request.
Here is an example of writing Xabs and Yabs values to the Mazak1 device.
http://129.6.72.44/Mazak1/sample?Xabs=10.0&Yabs=20.0
Note, if you use the http post method to update MTConnect data, you will not need a SHDR adapters, and it can be blank within the config file, i.e., agent.cfg:
Adapters
{
}
Posted: John Michaloski Tue 07/26/11 03:01:07 PM
Answer: You can use VBScript to update data. Below is a VB Script test to write writing Xabs and Yabs values of the Mazak1 device to the MTConnect Agent.
Function HTTPPost(sUrl, sRequest)
set oHTTP = CreateObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP")
oHTTP.open "POST", sUrl,false
oHTTP.setRequestHeader "Content-Type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"
oHTTP.setRequestHeader "Content-Length", Len(sRequest)
oHTTP.send sRequest
HTTPPost = oHTTP.responseText
Wscript.echo "Status: " & oHTTP.statusText
Wscript.echo "Response: " & oHTTP.responseText
End Function
HTTPPost "http://129.6.72.44/Mazak1/sample?Xabs=10.0&Yabs=20.0", ""
Posted: John Michaloski Tue 07/26/11 10:02:07 AM
Answer: Below is a VB Script test to write qmrcylinderplan.xml file to the MTConnect Agent.
Function HTTPPost(sUrl, sRequest)
set oHTTP = CreateObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP")
oHTTP.open "POST", sUrl,false
oHTTP.setRequestHeader "Content-Type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"
oHTTP.setRequestHeader "Content-Length", Len(sRequest)
oHTTP.send sRequest
HTTPPost = oHTTP.responseText
End Function
Dim sData, currentDirectory, filename, devicename
filename ="qmrcylinderplan.xml"
devicename="BORE_1232?type=Part"
Dim objFSO, objFile, xmlhttp
Const ForReading = 1, ForWriting = 2, ForAppending = 8
' Read file from current directory
currentDirectory = left(WScript.ScriptFullName,(Len(WScript.ScriptFullName))-(len(WScript.ScriptName)))
Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set objFile = objFSO.OpenTextFile(currentDirectory + filename, ForReading)
sData = objFile.ReadAll
set xmlhttp = Createobject("MSXML2.XMLHTTP.3.0")
strURL = "http://localhost/asset/" + devicename
xmlhttp.Open "PUT", strURL, false
xmlhttp.Send sData
Wscript.echo "Status: " & xmlhttp.statusText
Wscript.echo "Response: " & xmlhttp.responseText
set xmlhttp=Nothing
Posted: John Michaloski Tue 07/26/11 03:01:07 PM
Answer: Assuming the agent has added the ability to determine the current configuration file name, then it is quite easy. First you will need to include the dlib config_reader.h file, and then open the configuration file as an istream, and then load it into a config reader kernel (main_cr.load_from(fin)). Once read you can read a “block” (main_cr.block("MachineMonitor")) and determine if a key exists(cr.is_key_defined("MotionTags")) and then read the keys value (cr["MotionTags"]).
#include <dlib/config_reader.h>
AgentConfiguration * _config;
. . .
ifstream fin(_config->configfile().c_str());
config_reader::kernel_1a main_cr;
main_cr.load_from(fin);
if (!main_cr.is_block_defined("MachineMonitor")) // is block in config file?
return;
const config_reader::kernel_1a& cr = main_cr.block("MachineMonitor"); // read block
if (cr.is_key_defined("MotionTags")) // read a tag in the block
{
std::out << cr["MotionTags"]; // do something
}
Wed 08/10/11 09:32:50 AM
More info at
http://dlib.net/config_reader_ex.cpp.html
Answer: It is possible.
First you will need to modify the Devices.xml or probe.xml file in memory which describes the Device configuration. The web site http://xmlsoft.org/examples has many example on how to use libxml2 to navigate, create, delete nodes from the XML tree, and how to do XPath queries. In the case below, we create a path query "//Devices/Device/DataItems" of the node in the XML tree that we want. We then associate a namespace to the path (xmlXPathRegisterNs ) before we execute the Xpath search (xmlXPathEvalExpression).
xmlDocPtr mDoc=_config->getAgent()->mXmlParser->mDoc;
//http://xmlsoft.org/examples/xpath1.c
xmlXPathContextPtr xpathCtx = NULL;
xmlXPathObjectPtr controllerdataitems = NULL;
std::string path = "//Devices/Device/DataItems";
xpathCtx = xmlXPathNewContext(mDoc);
xmlNodePtr root = xmlDocGetRootElement(mDoc);
if (root->ns != NULL)
{
path = addNamespace(path, "m");
xmlXPathRegisterNs(xpathCtx, BAD_CAST "m", root->ns->href);
}
controllerdataitems = xmlXPathEvalExpression(BAD_CAST path.c_str(), xpathCtx);
if(controllerdataitems == NULL)
{
xmlXPathFreeContext(xpathCtx);
return;
}
Once we have a pointer to the XML node we can can insert a new DataItem in the DataItems list. This is done by creating a new Xml node ( ) and then associating the attributes we want with the node for the equivalent to:
<DataItem category="EVENT" id="id10223" name="probe_toolchange" type="OTHER" />
This insures that an http agent/current query will return our new data item.
xmlNodeSetPtr nodeset = controllerdataitems->nodesetval;
if(nodeset->nodeMax<1)
return;
xmlNodePtr node = xmlNewChild(nodeset->nodeTab[0], NULL, BAD_CAST "DataItem", NULL);
xmlNewProp(node, BAD_CAST "category", BAD_CAST "EVENT");
xmlNewProp(node, BAD_CAST "name", BAD_CAST "probe_toolchange");
xmlNewProp(node, BAD_CAST "id", BAD_CAST "probe_toolchange");
xmlNewProp(node, BAD_CAST "type", BAD_CAST "OTHER");
Next you will need to modify add the DataItem to the device. This entails manually setting up the XML attributes, creating a new DataItem, and then registering the DataItem with both the Device and the Component – in the case below, they are the same entity.
Device *device = _config->getAgent()->getDeviceByName(_devicename);
if(device==NULL)
return;
// Create availability data item and add it to the device.
std::map<tstring,tstring> attrs;
attrs["type"] = "OTHER";
attrs["id"] = "probe_toolchange";
attrs["name"] = "probe_toolchange";
attrs["category"] = "EVENT";
// Create new data item
DataItem *di = new DataItem(attrs);
di->setComponent(*device);
device->addDataItem(*di);
device->addDeviceDataItem(*di);
tstring time = getCurrentTime(GMT_UV_SEC);
_config->getAgent()->addToBuffer(di, "FALSE", time);
Posted: John Michaloski Wed 08/10/11 09:43:39 AM
Answer: Data is stored in the agent as a series of ComponentEvents in Checkpoint containers. If you access the “latest” checkpoint container, and use a filter with the id of the data you want, you can retrieve the data as follows:
std::string GetValue(std::string name)
{
Device *device = _config->getAgent()->getDeviceByName(“devicename”);
DataItem * di=device->getDeviceDataItem(name);
if(di==NULL) return "";
Checkpoint mLatest=_config->getAgent()->mLatest;
std::set<string> aFilter;
aFilter.insert(di->getId());
std::vector<ComponentEventPtr> events;
mLatest.getComponentEvents(events, &aFilter);
if(events.size() < 1)
return "";
return events[0]->getValue();
}
You will need access to the device you are scanning the data for. This does not handle conditions only simple data types, e.g., samples and events. This could also be simplified if you have the id instead of the name.
Posted: John Michaloski Wed 08/10/11 01:15:48 PM
Answer: If you can generate QMR XML, then you 90% of the way there.
MTConnect version 1.2 has the ability to incorporate and transport independent XML data. The MTConnect specificiton Version 1.2 added assets, (the first case deals with representing CuttingTool (see part 4 of the 1.2 specification.) Assets allows the use of the MTConnect agent as a limited key/value store (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Associative_array) with the ability to collect and report entire XML documents as they change within applications.
We will use Quality Measurement Results (QMR) XML Schema to develop the steps involved in communicating the XML documents. The following steps show how this is done.
1. First, you create an XML file like the partial one based on the QMR schema (qifspecs.org):
<Part timestamp="2011-07-25T13:55:22" assetId="BORE_1232">
<Inspection> <!-- this is the start of the QMR specification -->
<MeasurementResults>
...
</MeasurementResults>
</Inspection>
</Part>
The Part is an extension to MTConnect and should be in its own namespace. We could also call it WorkPiece or something else, but we'll use Part for this example.
Next you'll need to get a version of the MTConnect Agent (1.2 branch).
You will also need to configure the agent. It needs to have this line in the cfg file: AllowPut = true
Here's an example:
Devices = VMC-3Axis.xml
AllowPut = true
Adapters {
VMC-3Axis {
Host = localhost
}
}
# Logger Configuration
logger_config
{
logging_level = debug
output = cout
}
Next you will need to post data to the agent. See FAQ: “Is there a simple way to upload an “asset” XML file to the HTTP C++ Agent?” for one example on how to upload an XML file. Below, the type=Part bit is because we can store many different asset types and we need to track assets by type.
http://localhost:5000/asset/BORE_1232?type=Part
PUT asset/BORE_1232?type=Part HTTP/1.1
Host: localhost:5000
Content-Type: text/plain;charset=UTF-8
Content-Length: <length of file>
[bore.xml Data]
The asset id (BORE_1232) at the end MUST match the asset Id in the document. That's it for the changes to MTConnect. The new Assets framework can contain any content.
The full document from MTConnect agent after this is done will look like this:
You will also receive an asset changed event telling you a part has been added/changed within the /current MTConnect query (highlighted in bold below):
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<MTConnectStreams xmlns:m="urn:mtconnect.org:MTConnectStreams:1.2" ns="urn:mtconnect.org:MTConnectStreams:1.2" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="urn:mtconnect.org:MTConnectStreams:1.2 http://www.mtconnect.org/schemas/MTConnectStreams_1.2.xsd">
<Header creationTime="2011-07-25T19:44:18Z" sender="flori-2.local" instanceId="1311622912" version="1.2" bufferSize="131072" nextSequence="47" firstSequence="1" lastSequence="46"/>
<Streams>
<DeviceStream name="VMC-3Axis" uuid="000">
<ComponentStream component="Device" name="VMC-3Axis" componentId="dev">
<Events>
<Availability dataItemId="avail" timestamp="2011-07-25T19:41:52.147505Z" sequence="11">UNAVAILABLE</Availability>
<AssetChanged dataItemId="dev_asset_chg" timestamp="2011-07-25T19:42:16.855924Z" sequence="46" assetType="Part">BORE_1232</AssetChanged>
</Events>
</ComponentStream>
</DeviceStream>
</Streams>
</MTConnectStreams>
The application monitors the assetchanged events and then grabs the data. This is the same process as with cutting tools. There's more docs on this in the latest MTC 1.2 docs regarding asset storage and such. We also have asset counts in the header as well:
<Header creationTime="2011-07-25T19:46:41Z" sender="flori-2.local" instanceId="1311622912" version="1.2" bufferSize="131072">
<AssetCounts>
<AssetCount assetType="Part">1</AssetCount>
</AssetCounts>
</Header>
Note: these changes are still in beta and will be finalized with when the docs have finished review.
Posted: John Michaloski Fri 08/12/11 04:05:29 PM
Answer: There is also a new “multiline” extension to MTConnect using SHDR which allows you to transmit multiple lines at a time. Below is and EBNF representation of the SHDR with the new multiline asset implementation:
<SHDR> ::= <Date> "|" <StatementList>
<StatementList> ::= <Statement> | <Statement> EOL <StatementList>
<Statement> ::= <SimpleStatement> | < MultilineStatement >
<SimpleStatement> ::= <Tag> "|" <Value> { "|" <Value>}*
<MultilineStatement> ::= "@" <Tag> "@" "|" ID "|" --multiline—{A-Z}+ .* --multiline—{A-Z}+
where beginning and ending multiline statement “--multiline—{A-Z}” must match.
Here is an example implementing the Asset SHDR:
2011-07-25T13:55:22|@ASSET@|BORE_1232|Part|--multiline--AAAA
<Part timestamp="2011-07-25T13:55:22" assetId="BORE_1232">
<Inspection>
<MeasurementResults>
...
</Inspection>
</Part>
--multiline--AAAA
The multiline will scan until it sees a matching --multiline-XXXX token at the beginning of the line. The contents will act similar to the post.
Posted Mon 08/15/11 09:58:48 AM
Answer: The agent.cfg is responsible for the Agent configuration. Inside the agent.cfg file, logging configuration is specified using the logger_config block.
logger_config configuration itemslogger_config The logging configuration section.logging_level The logging level: trace, debug, info, warn, error, or fatal. Default:infooutput The output file or stream. If a file is specified specify as: “file filename”. cout and cerr can be used to specify the standard output and standard error streams. Defaults to the same directory as the executable. Default: file adapter.log
You can change the logging_level to specify the verbosity of the logging as well as the destination of the logging output.
1. logger_config
2. {
3. logging_level = debug
4. output = file debug.log
5. }
This will log everything from debug to fatal to the file debug.log. For only fatal errors you can specify the following:
1. logger_config
2. {
3. logging_level = fatal
4. }
The default file is agent.log in the same directory as the agent.exe file resides. The default logging level is info. To have the agent log to the command window:
1. logger_config
2. {
3. logging_level = debug
4. output = cout
5. }
This will log debug level messages to the current console window. When the agent is run with debug, it is sets the logging configuration to debug and outputs to the standard output as specified above.
Answer: The agent has a method addAsset which can be used to save an Asset (XML code) in a ring buffer. The procedure needs pointers to the Agent, Device and then the Asset ID (BORE_1232), Type(XML Head element) and a Body, i.e., the xml file. Saving the Asset code, for the DataItem BORE_1232 is shown below, where _config is the Agent Configuration.
// <DataItem type="ASSET_CHANGED" id="BORE_1232" category="EVENT" name="BORE_1232"/>
std::string aBody = "<Part><Inspection><MeasurementResults/></Inspection></Part>";
std::string aId="BORE_1232";
std::string type="Part";
Device *device = _config->getAgent()->getDeviceByName(_device);
_config->getAgent()->addAsset(device, aId, aBody, type);
Posted: John Michaloski Wed 08/17/11 09:48:07 AM
Answer: The agent Xmlprinter.cpp has the code:
THROW_IF_XML2_ERROR(xmlTextWriterWriteAttribute(writer, BAD_CAST "creationTime", BAD_CAST getCurrentTime(GMT).c_str()));
Posted Mon 08/29/11 10:58:58 AM
Answer: Inside the cppagent.cpp file you can add the windows subsystem (to run instead of main()), which is shown in the following code so that it will use WinMain as the primary main.
#pragma comment(linker, "/SUBSYSTEM:WINDOWS")
int APIENTRY WinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance,
HINSTANCE hPrevInstance,
LPTSTR lpCmdLine,
int nCmdShow)
You do not need to remove tmain or main. They will be ignored.
Using WinMain, argc/argv are gone but you can use __arc, __argv instead:
config.main( __argc,(const char **) __argv );
Posted: John Michaloski Mon 08/29/11 10:58:58 AM
Answer: First, add the windows subsystem described earlier and then add the COM functionality you require, as illustrated below:
int APIENTRY WinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance,
HINSTANCE hPrevInstance,
LPTSTR lpCmdLine,
int nCmdShow)
{
HRESULT hr;
hr = ::CoInitialize(NULL);
hr = ::CoInitializeSecurity( NULL, //Points to security descriptor
-1, //Count of entries in asAuthSvc
NULL, //Array of names to register
NULL, //Reserved for future use
RPC_C_AUTHN_LEVEL_NONE, //The default authentication //level for proxies
RPC_C_IMP_LEVEL_IDENTIFY, //The default impersonation //level for proxies
NULL, //Reserved; must be set to NULL
EOAC_NONE, //Additional client or //server-side capabilities
NULL //Reserved for future use
);
. . .
Posted: John Michaloski Mon 08/29/11 10:58:58 AM
Answer: You will need to derive (subclass the class AgentConfiguration) and override the start and stop methods. Then, you can create a new adapter, and spawn off a thread to run your own adaper.
class AgentConfigurationEx : public AgentConfiguration
{
public:
AgentConfigurationEx() {}
MyAdapter * myadapter;
virtual void start()
{
_myadapter = new MyAdapter ((AgentConfiguration *) this);
myadapter->Start() ;
}
// Start the core server. This blocks until the server stops!
AgentConfiguration::start();
}
virtual void stop() { … }
. . .
};
You will then need to rewrite the main() routine to use the new agent configuration class.
int main(int aArgc, const char *aArgv[])
{
AgentConfigurationEx config;
. . .
config.main(aArgc, (const char **) aArgv);
Posted: John Michaloski Mon 08/29/11 10:58:58 AM
Answer: Asio is a cross-platform C++ library for network and low-level I/O programming that provides developers with a consistent asynchronous model using a modern C++ approach. There is a boost and non-boost implementation. Below shows a SendHttp function to send any szrequest to an http server.
#include "boost/asio.hpp"
using namespace std;
Bool SendHttp(string szrequest, string domainname="127.0.0.1", string port="80")
{
boost::asio::ip::tcp::iostream stream;
stream.connect(domainname, port);
stream << "GET " << szrequest << " HTTP/1.0\r\n"
<< "\r\n"
<< std::flush;
if( stream.bad())
return false;
std::string response_line;
while(!stream.bad() && !std::getline(stream, response_line).eof())
{
stdout << response_line.c_str();
}
return true;
}
Here is an example of using SendHttp to write Xabs and Yabs values to the Mazak1 device.
http://129.6.72.44/Mazak1/sample?Xabs=10.0&Yabs=20.0
SendHttp("http://129.6.72.44/Mazak1/sample?Xabs=10.0&Yabs=20.0", "129.6.72.44");
Posted: John Michaloski Fri 09/23/11 11:47:41 AM
Answer: You will need the name of the Com component program id (PROGID) or the CLSID. Below shows how to do it with the program id.
CComPtr<IDispatch> _appdispatch;
...
_appdispatch.CoCreateInstance(L"PCDLRN.Application");
Then, the COM component has to be implemented as an automation IDispatch
interface so that you can do method and property name lookup via the
Dispatch interface. It’s easiest if you use ATL GetPropertyByName method
and the default implementation of CComPtr<IDispatch>.
template<typename VariantType>
_variant_t GetTypedProperty(CComPtr<IDispatch> pDispatch, _bstr_t propname, VariantType defaultval)
{
_variant_t var(defaultval);
if(pDispatch==NULL) return var;
HRESULT hr= pDispatch.GetPropertyByName(propname, (VARIANT*)&var);
// could throw exception if failed...
return var;
}
void FakeAdapter::gatherDeviceData()
{
USES_CONVERSION;
HRESULT hr;
mAvailability.available();
_variant_t version, pProg, speed;
version = GetTypedProperty<BSTR>(_appdispatch, L"VersionString", L"");
pProg = GetTypedProperty<IDispatch *>(_appdispatch, L"ActivePartProgram", NULL);
// assume works
CComPtr<IDispatch> _progdispatch = (IDispatch *) pProg;
speed=GetTypedProperty<LONG>(_progdispatch, L"Speed", 0);
Don’t forget to call ::CoInitialize(NULL) or everything will fail.
Posted: John Michaloski Tue 10/11/11 01:16:28 PM
Answer: All the source code for dlib is included complete source code in the globals.cpp file.
... mtconnect-cppagent\agent\globals.cpp(36):#include "../lib/dlib/all/source.cpp"
/* Dlib library */
#include "../lib/dlib/all/source.cpp"
Answer: Time stamps in MTConnect are based on Universal Time Coordinated (UTC). Also known as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). Or ZULU time by the military. This allows factories in different parts of the world to be monitored and used in the same reports without error caused by Time Zone difference.
Getting all your equipment clocks to be correct can sometimes be difficult. If the controller is based on WINDOWS, you can use time servers to synchronize them.
MTConnect Agents have the ability to ignore the time stamps from the equipment (Adapters) and use the servers local clock to replace any errors thus keeping all the equipment in synch. By putting all your Agents on the same server, you can easily control your time stamp synching and allow easier maintenance of settings. This is desirable in large or mixed device type implementations. But it is strictly an implementation preference.