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Program format

Each machine (NC) can have an individual NC program format. The format of programs can be either common (i.e., its parameters can be applied for programs that are both sent and received) or different for programs that are sent and received.

 

General settings

 

To change general settings, you should open the "Format - General" window (fig. 5)

 

format-common

Fig. 5. General settings.

 

Finish receiving data from the NC after character - if you check this option and specify a hexadecimal character code, the DNC Precision will stop receiving data immediately after it receives this character.

 

Comment delimiters - these characters separate comments in the program body. In the server mode, comments contain requests to the DNCP from the NC, while the DNCP in its turn sends additional information to the NC (such as catalog contents, operation progress status, etc.). It is important to specify those characters correctly, as the correct interpretation of requests and responses depends on this.

 

Waiting XOn character before transmitting a file - this option allows the DNC server to transmit data to a NC machine only after XOn character receiving, that specified on the "Port" tab, and only if you do not use software flow control. This option is useful in some cases, when the DNC server can't detect with hardware flow control, that machine is now in the receiving state.

 

Data exchange

 

To change these settings, you should open the "Format - Data exchange" window (fig. 6).

 

format-data-exchange

Fig. 6. Data transmission settings.

 

You can configure the data transmission format separately for each direction (sending and receiving). The direction of data transmission is selected from the drop-down list at the top of the dialog window. If the format is the same for both received and sent data, you can select the "Same format for receiving and sending" item from the list.

 

After you select the direction of data transmission, you should first configure the general format of the program. It is characterized by two parameters:

 

Start - the parameter indicating the beginning of the program. This parameter is a character string that can contain both usual ASCII characters ranging from 32 to 127 or any other character with the code specified in the form of #XX, where XX is the hexadecimal code of the needed character. All the data received before this byte sequence are considered a control header and processed correspondingly. For instance, if you enter the sequence of characters %#0A, the parameter of the program start will be two ASCII characters % and LF.

 

End - the parameter indicating the ending of the program. All the data received after this parameter are ignored by DNC Precision and are saved only to the received data log file. The format of this parameter is the same as of the previous one. If the "End" parameter is empty, DNCP stops receiving data after the specified timeout after the last received byte or character (Delays - File end sign timeout).

 

Program name prefix - it is by this parameter that the DNC Precision attempts to determine the size of the program file while receiving data.

 

After you configure the program format, you should configure the format of each program line. This format is also characterized by two parameters:

 

Start - the parameter telling the DNCP that the NC is starting to send a new program line. The parameter is entered in the same format as the previous parameters. If this parameter is not specified, the program starts receiving data from any character. In this case, a line is separated only by the line end parameters.

 

End - the parameter telling the DNCP that the NC is finishing to send a program line. The parameter is entered in the same format as the previous parameters. If this parameter is not specified, it will not be possible to separate lines in the general data flow. That is why this parameter is obligatory.

 

Skip lines starting with - this parameter defines such lines separated by the above-mentioned parameters that are not to be received or sent. If a line has this sequence of characters at the beginning, it will be skipped.

 

Ignore characters - one or several characters are specified in this input field. When a line separated by the above-mentioned parameters has one of the specified characters, they will be removed from the line.

 

Skip empty lines when transmitting data - if this option is on and if an empty line (containing only the line start and end parameters) is encountered while transmitting data, it will be skipped.