Rockwell Automation FactoryTalk View Site Edition Users Guide - Manual (Page 129)

6 • W ORKING WITH NETWORK DISTRIBUTED APPLICATIONS
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Absolute and relative references
In a network distributed application, you can use absolute or relative references to refer to
application components, such as graphic displays and tags, when building FactoryTalk
View commands or connecting graphic objects to process data.
 Absolute references point directly at a specific component, by referring to the
component’s name and the area (or areas, in the case of nested areas) in which it is
located.
For example, an absolute reference to a graphic display called Detail in an area called
AssemblyLineNorth is:
/AssemblyLineNorth::Detail
Use absolute references to ensure that a specific component in a specific location is
used, regardless of where it is referenced from.
 Relative references point at a component relative to the current server or area. For
example, a relative reference to a graphic display named Detail is simply the display’s
name:
Detail
When a relative reference is used, FactoryTalk View assumes that the component is
located in the current area.
Use relative references, for example, to re-use component names in a network
distributed application for a plant that has identical production lines. Such an
application might contain different areas to represent each production line; however,
each area would contain the same component names.
An absolute reference to an application’s root area does not include the application’s name,
even though the name is shown in the root area in FactoryTalk View Studio.