UDA Attributes

LEXICON Command Reference Manual

User Defined Attributes : UDA Attributes

UDA elements have the following attributes (besides the standard ones):

UDNAME - the name by which the UDA will be referred to in the AVEVA E3D™ modules that use UDAs. The name must not be confused with the standard NAME attribute of the UDA, which is the name of the UDA element within the LEXICON database. The name must be entered as a text attribute with a maximum length of twenty case-independent characters. An example of setting the UDNAME attribute would be:

UDNA ’SUPPORT’

ABLEN is the minimum number of characters for a UDNAME abbreviation - default 3. In the default case, the minimum abbreviation for the example UDNAME given above would be SUP. When two or more UDAs have the same minimum abbreviation - an error occurs when the UDAs are compiled, refer to Create New UDAs for further information.

UKEY. A system attribute, it can be queried but not set directly. It is the number which identifies the UDA.

It is possible to copy a UDA, with the copy having the same key as the original - refer to KEYCOPY command in Copy UDA Definitions for further information.

UTYPE is the UDA type this can be set to the following:


REAL	Any numeric value, for example, 23.5
INTeger	Any whole number, for example, 200
REFerence	An element identifier, for example, /VESS1, =12/99
TEXT	Any characters in closing single quotes. for example, ’BOT_STEEL2’
WORD	Any sequence of letters, for example, ABCD
LOGical	TRUE or FALSE
POSition	A position, for example, E10 N50 U100
DIRection	A direction, for example, E 45 U
ORIentation	An orientation, for example, U is E and N is D.

The UTYPE defines the type of data that may be entered against the UDA for an element accessed by a user module. POS, DIR and ORI types are particularly useful when used in conjunction with WRT or FROM. For example:

Q :POS OF /EQUI-1 WRT /*

Note:

when WRT is used, the base value is relative to the Owner, not the element itself. Hence this command will extract the values of :POS for EQUI-1, and concatenate the values with the values for the Zone and Site. The result will be relative to the World.

ULEN is the maximum number of occurrences of the given UTYPE that may be stored in the UDA. For example, a REAL UDA might be given a ULEN of 3, making it suitable for storing, say, a 3D coordinate array. For TEXT and WORD UTYPEs, ULEN is the maximum number of characters. The default setting of ULEN is 1, the maximum is 120. (Strings longer than 120 characters will be truncated.) ULEN cannot be used on attributes with a UTYPE of POS, ORI or DIR, a length of 1 is always assumed.

RPTX (Report text) is a text attribute used to define the display name for the attribute. This is the name that is used as the default column heading in reports. RPTX may be up to 30 characters long.

UUNIT defines the dimension of the attribute so that the values will be unit qualified. The default is NONE, which means that the UDA value will be output exactly as it is stored and will not vary according to unit settings. The UUNIT setting is only used if the UDA type is REAL.

DFLT (Default). A default value for a UDA that hasn't been set or becomes 'unset'. For UDAs with a UTYPE of INT, REAL or LOG the default will only be used if ULEN is 1. DFLT is not a valid attribute for UDAs with a UTYPE of REF, POS, ORI or DIR types.

The type of setting entered should correspond to the UTYPE. DFLT may be left unset or set to NONE. In this case the UDA has no default.

DESCRIPT is a text attribute which may be used to give a description of the UDA.

ELELIST (Element list) contains the list of element types for which the UDA is valid. Up to 100 element types may be set.

The element list must be assembled using the syntax:


ELElist ADD element_type

Elements must be removed from the list by using the syntax


ELElist REMove element_type...


Example:
ELELIST ADD ZONE PIPE	add ZONE and PIPE elements
ELE REMOVE PIPE	remove PIPE elements
ELE REM ALL	remove all elements

To simplify input the keywords ALLP and PRIM can be used to cover all piping components and all primitives, respectively.

UDAs can be bound to UDETs.

UDAs may be added to the UDET in the same way that they are allocated to system element types, for example. a UDET may appear in the ELELIST for a UDA definition.

REFLIST (Reference list), this is only relevant if UTYPE is REF. It is the list of valid element types that the UDA may reference. For example, if a REF UDA is set in MODEL to an EQUI element and the UDA element’s REFLIST is set to VALV, then an error will result. If REFLIST is not set, it is assumed that all element types may be referenced. REFLIST is set in a similar way to ELELIST, for example:


Example:
REFLIST REM PIPE BRAN
REF REM ALL
REF REM PRIM

The REFLIST may have up to 100 members.

A RELIST may also contain references to UDETs which have been directly derived from a system type.

UHIDE Setting this to True will indicate that the UDA will be hidden from the ‘Q ATT’ command and from the attribute form within AVEVA E3D™. Querying of the individual UDA will not be effected by this setting.

UTEAMS If the UHIDE attribute has been set to true then the UTEAMS attribute can be used to override UHIDE for specific teams. The UDA will then be hidden for all teams other than the ones specifically declared in UTEAMS. UTEAMS can hold an array of values, for example:


Example:
UTEAMS /TEAM1/TEAM2/*TEAM3

Values may also be input individually for example:


Example:
UTEAMS /TEAM1 UTEAMS NUM 2/TEAM2 UTEAMS NUM 3/*TEAM3

UHYPER The attribute holds a logical value, setting this to the true will allow the text value of a UDA to contain a path to the external file.

UCONN The attribute holds a logical value, setting the value to have will signal that the UDA is a connection in the reference list.

UPSEUD Setting this logical attribute to True will indicate the UDA is pseudo attribute. Pseudo attribute allow for dynamic values to be returned as needed rather than having static values stored in the database.

The code required to return a pseudo attribute value must be plugged in through the use of the C# API.

UDPEND If the calculation of the pseudo attributes relies on other values on the element, and the pseudo attribute is to be used in a dynamic rule, then it is possible to denote what real attributes the pseudo attribute depends on by setting the UDPEND attribute. For example:

Add a UDA :VOLUME to a box. The provided pseudo code simply multiplies XLEN*YLEN*ZLEN, so :VOLUME is dependant on XLEN, YLEN, ZLEN. To indicate this set UDPEND attribute to 'XLEN YELN ZLEN'. If subsequently, :VOLUME is included in a dynamic rule, and XLEN, YLEN, ZLEN are modified then the result will reflect this. For most pseudo attributes the setting of UDPEND is unlikely to be needed.

UDTABL defines whether the attribute values are indexed for rapid access. Indexing will improve performance for searches and collections that use attribute filters. Only use indexing on attributes that are significant to such collections or searches.

ULVOPT The attribute holds a logical value, setting this optional flag value to True will allow the value or limit of a UDA or USDA to have a value outside the set valid values or ranges.