BCS Engineering DSL

1 Publishing

1.1 Install Dependencies

npm install

1.2 Build

npm run langium:generate && npm run build

1.3 Generate Extension

Before generating the extension, make sure to run the build commands first.

vsce package

1.4 Publish CLI

NOTE: Previous versions have been published under the name bcs-engineering-dsl on my personal npm account. To avoid confusion, you might want to publish under a different name.

npm login
npm publish --access public

2 Installation

2.1 Install VS Code Extension

Right click on the bcs-engineering-dsl-<version>.vsix file and select Install Extension VSIX.

2.2 Install the CLI:

npm install -g bcs-engineering-dsl

or link the local version

npm link

3 Usage

3.1 Generate Code

bcs-engineering-cli beckhoff generate <path-to-bcsctrl-file>

3.2 Generate Code and Deploy

bcs-engineering-cli beckhoff deploy <path-to-bcsctrl-file>

NOTE: The working directory will be set to the root of the provided file. This means that the .bcsctrl file can contain cross-references to other files in the same directory.

3.3 Supported Target Platforms

Currently the following target platforms are supported:

3.3.1 Beckhoff

In addition to the standard libraries provided by Beckhoff, the following libraries are supported:

• Tc3_DALI: Please note that this library integration is not fully tested.

4 Future Work

• Add support for more target platforms (e.g., Siemens, Codesys)
• Add and test support for more bus systems (e.g., EtherCAT, Profinet)
• Add a more sophisticated module system (e.g., support multiple files, packages, imports, etc.)
• Support structs of structs
• Support not only statefull FBs, but also stateless functions
• Support FB properties (besides inputs, outputs, locals, and logic)
• Support better scoping e.g. true block scoping for variables
• Support UseStmt within FB logic
• Look into debugging DSLs
• Look into moving the framework to a web-based solution (both the DSL and the deployment tool)
• Look into graphical modeling