Rockwell Automation 2708-NNM Network Manager Software - Manual (Page 41)

Chapter 5
Advanced Topic
5–5
Downloading Chained Executables
File Services / File/chain download
By loading a compiled program (.LXE), in file memory this file can then be
‘CHAINed’ to as if it were a separate program, however there is no support
for preserving variable values between CHAINing programs. Therefore any
variable values that are to be maintained across a CHAIN must be saved in a
file that can then be accessed by the CHAINed to program.
For an example let’s say we have three programs that make up our chained
application, GetBadge.Bas, GetEmp.Bas and LogEmp.Bas. Each of these
programs chain to each other to form our complete application, now in order
for us to get these programs into the workstation’s file memory and then be
able to run them we must first compile each program separately, i.e. LXB
GetBadge, LXB GetEmp, LXB LogEmp. By compiling each of these
programs we have produced three files named GetBadge. Lxe, GetEmp.Lxe,
and LogEmp.Lxe. These are the files that will be loaded into the
workstation’s file memory.
To send a file to the workstation you choose the File Services option from
the Main Menu
<F8>/‘F’. Then choose the File/chain download option from
the File Services menu <F3>/‘F’ . You will now be prompted for the name of
the file you want to send, simply enter in the filename and press <ENTER>.
Next you will be prompted for the workstation to download to, either type in
the station you want to send to or press <ENTER> to send to all
workstations. Repeat these steps for all files that are to be loaded.
Now to start the first program that we loaded (GetBadge), we must instruct
the workstation as to which file we would like to run. To accomplish this first
choose the Supervisor Menu option from the Main Menu
<F7>/‘S’ . Next
choose the Begin loaded program option from the Supervisor Menu <F6>/
‘B’ . You are now prompted for the name of the file you would like to start
running, so as an example you would type in the name of our main program
which is GetBadge, and then press <ENTER>. You are now prompted for
the workstation number to start the program on, so type in the station number
such as 1–1 and press <ENTER>. A small program will be created and
loaded into the workstation, and will chain to the program you specified, i.e.
CHAIN “GetBadge”. This will load GetBadge from file memory into
program memory and begin running the program. Now, at any time
GetBadge can CHAIN to any of the other two programs in file memory, but
those programs MUST CHAIN back to GetBadge for GetBadge to ever run
again.
Customizing NM (cont’d)