Enhancing pyads: Parsing ADS Datatypes and Improving Symbol Management

[Renstec]

Dear pyads Community,

I have developed a Python class DatatypeEntry, designed to parse ADS datatype entries from the ADSIGRP_SYM_DT_UPLOAD response.
This class provides structured access to various datatype attributes, including names, types, comments, flags, dimensions, and subitems.
Please note that this example is primarily intended to demonstrate parsing techniques and lacks comprehensive error handling.

Proposed Enhancements for pyads

• Improved Struct Handling: Enhance support for complex structures, especially those requiring specific alignments or containing nested elements.

• Hierarchical Representation: Implement methods within the AdsSymbol class to traverse and access subsymbols, providing an organized approach to working with complex data structures.

I welcome feedback, suggestions, or collaboration on integrating these features into the main pyads library.

Best regards,
Renstec

[chrisbeardy]

This looks like it could be very useful and build upon or replace some of the parsing we have in representing symbols etc. One of the things I've always wanted is knowing if a variable is persistent, for example. I'll need to take the time to look into this at some point. I think the first starting point would be to build upon AdsSymbol so that a symbol can inlcude all the data that can be parsed. So it looks a bit more like the .Net implementation.

[tvogel]

On a related note, I also recently went through researching the data-type upload and parsing (from Beckhoff's sample #16) because I was missing this in pyads and on the way just these days implemented a Qt based target-browser. Maybe it's of interest to you!