Rockwell Automation 1768-EWEB EtherNet/IP Web Server Module User Manual - Manual (Page 63)

Publication ENET-UM527E-EN-P - October 2006
Use Data Views to Access Controller Data 63
Use an External
Application to Access
Data Views The XML format of data views makes the data views files accessible by
user-written programs. Many programming languages, such as Java
and Visual Basic, can process XML files.
User programs access data views by making HTTP requests. This is
just like a web browser, except instead of displaying the data view,
the user program processes the XML data. The browser uses an XSL
stylesheet to display the XML files. The XSD schema files validate
data views.
Read a Data View with an External Application
For an external application to read a data view, the application issues
an HTTP GET command that specifies the location and filename of the
data view.
Data views are located in the /user/system/dataviews directory. The
URL for a data view named myview would be:
http://IP_address/user/system/dataviews/myview.xml
Change Data In a Data View with an External Application
When an external application completes modifying tag data in a data
view, it should post the modified data view, either as a file attachment
(in a multi-part form) or in a single form field named xml, to the URL
of the data view itself.
File Format Description
XSL An XML data view specifies an external XSL stylesheet that contains the rules for
transforming this XML information into HTML. A web browser uses the XSL stylesheet to
display the data view.
The XSL file is stored in address/dataview/dataview.xsl where address is the IP address
or host name of the web server module.
XSD The web server module provides an XML schema (dataview.xsd) for validating data views.
This schema also references the CIPDataTypes.xsd schema.
The XSD files are stored in address/schema/dataview.xsd and
address/schema/CIPDataTypes.xsd where address is the IP address or host name of the
web server module.