ProSoft Technology ProSoft i-View - Manual (Page 61)

ProSoft i-View ♦ Mobile Process Monitoring and Control Application Data Source Files
Version 2.0.2 User Manual
ProSoft Technology, Inc. Page 61 of 106
September 29, 2011
3.3 Editing Source Files in a Text Editor
Since source files created in any of the ways described above are simply CSV files, they
are essentially text files as well. Integrators and advanced users can conveniently edit
them with any text editor such as WordPad or NotePad, and save them in plain text
format. It is also possible to create either CSV or TXT files from scratch in a text editor.
If you choose to use a text editor to create or edit source files, you need to be aware of
the double-quoting that Excel applies to text columns containing quotes. So you will need
to add them manually where necessary. This is not anything particular to ProSoft i-View,
it is just how CSVs are.
Double-quoting is particularly relevant for column D of a ProSoft i-View source file,
because many attributes expect a text string as their value, which may be enclosed in
quotation marks. When entering attributes in Excel, you do not need to take any special
care on this. However, the same file edited in NotePad will reveal the existence of extra
quoting that Excel automatically inserts to avoid text conflicts and to meet the CSV spec.
As an example, assuming an Allen Bradley controller tag name is main_switch, the row
referred to in the Attributes section (page 24) would look like this in the text editor:
main_switch, BOOL, TAG, "ord := 1 ; section := ""GENERAL"" ; label :=
""Main Run/Stop Switch"" ;
comment := ""Main Process Start/Stop"" ; access := 3 ; write_access := 5;"
If you choose to create and edit your files using only a text editor, the recommended way
is to use tab-delimited CSV formatting, in which commas are replaced by tabs, which
ProSoft i-View also supports. This format is much more convenient to use in text editors
because it is more readable and you can avoid all the double-quoting hassle. The row
shown above will look as follows if tabs are used as delimiters instead of commas:
main_switch BOOL TAG ord := 1; section := "GENERAL"; label
:= "Main Run/Stop Switch"; comment := "Main Process Start/Stop"; access := 3;
write_access := 5;