PLC Version Control

Dave picture Dave · Nov 18, 2010 · Viewed 13.8k times · Source

I need to come up with a CM process for PLC code.

Currently, the system is developed using RSLogix 5000. The build product is a monolithic file that can be loaded onto a PLC for execution and edited directly in the development environment. With multiple developers, this has become a problem. They're stepping on each others changes.

As an analogy, it's as if, when doing Java development, the only wway to edit and save the source would be to load up a *.jar file into your IDE, make the change, and then save it back to the jar file. This is less than ideal.

How can I coordinate changes between multiple developers working with PLC's?

Answer

v0n_hydro picture v0n_hydro · Jul 6, 2011

I use Unity Pro, so this may not apply for other brands.

Unity can export an "archive" file which is XML which describes the PLC program and IO setup in its entirety. After commissioning changes, I create an export and check it in to my local Git repo. This gets me an annotated history of changes, but no visual comparison. I can always use UnityDiff for comparison.

Check out http://www.mdtsoft.com/ also