Q: how to get a single control to use indexed drivers

[Chipprogr]

HI there,

   I am needing a little help please. I have an application Im writing in VS 2015 that will use a single control that needs to then connect to the appropriate PLC.
essentially I am trying to do this...
DrumNo is an Integer
My drivers are named EthernetIPforSLCMicroCom1 to EthernetIPforSLCMicroCom10

TempController1.CommComponent = EthernetIPforSLCMicroCom(DrumNo)
but I cannot figure out the syntax to allow indexing of the 10 plc addresses.

Thanks for the help - Eric

[dmroeder]

Use a select case or if statements:

If DrumNo = 1 Then TempController1.CommComponent = EthernetIPforSLCMicroCom1
If DrumNo = 2 Then TempController1.CommComponent = EthernetIPforSLCMicroCom2

and so on.

I've never tried swapping drivers while running, not sure if there is any error handling you have to do but above is how you would reassign.

[Chipprogr]

Thanks, I know I can get it to work that way but I want to find a cleaner , less code way.

I was hoping to use something like directcast but I cannot get the syntax to work out.

-Eric

[Archie]

Dustin beat me to a solution. I was going to propose a Select-Case like this:

        Select Case DrumNo
            Case 1
                TempController1.CommComponent = EthernetIPforCLXCom1
            Case 2
                TempController1.CommComponent = EthernetIPforCLXCom2
        End Select




If you wanted to treat the drivers as an array, you would need to create an array, then assign each driver instance like this

Code: [Select]

Private Drivers(10) As AdvancedHMIDrivers.IComComponent

Private Sub MainForm_Load(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load

    Drivers(0) = EthernetIPforCLXCom1
    Drivers(1) = EthernetIPforCLXCom2
.
.
.
End Sub

From there you could use similar code like you had:


TempController1.CommComponent = Drivers(DrumNo)

[dmroeder]

If you wanted to treat the drivers as an array, you would need to create an array, then assign each driver instance like this

Code: [Select]

Private Drivers(10) As AdvancedHMIDrivers.IComComponent

Private Sub MainForm_Load(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load

    Drivers(0) = EthernetIPforCLXCom1
    Drivers(1) = EthernetIPforCLXCom2
.
.
.
End Sub

From there you could use similar code like you had:


TempController1.CommComponent = Drivers(DrumNo)

That's a good idea there.