Scripting

Ignition
1

Hi,

I’m trying to automatically give file paths names with a date according to a timestamp:

[color=#0000FF]date = timeStampString
results = event.source.parent.getComponent(‘Table’).data
spreadsheet = system.dataset.dataSetToExcel(1, [results])
filePath = “C:\Vat Report\Vat 1\” + date + “.xls”
system.file.writeFile(filePath, spreadsheet)[/color]

but I get the error

[color=#FF0080]Traceback (innermost last):
File “event:propertyChange”, line 12, in ?
IOError: The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect
[/color]
What’s a better approach? :scratch: Thanks! :prayer:

2

The vast majority of programming languages give special meaning to backslashes in strings, as a way to specify various special characters. You’ll need to double up every backslash you need to really be a backslash in the string.
As a modern convenience, many languages’ file I/O libraries will accept unix-standard forward slashes as folder separators on all platforms, converting internally as needed. This is mostly true for Java.
So, two choices:filePath = "C:\\Vat Report\\Vat 1\\" + date + ".xls"Or:filePath = "C:/Vat Report/Vat 1/" + date + ".xls"

3

I tried:

[color=#0000FF]filePath = “C:\Vat Report\Vat 1\” + name + “.xls”[/color]

and

[color=#0040FF]filePath = “C:/Vat Report/Vat 1/” + name + “.xls”[/color]

and still get the error. :blush:

4

Just double checking… did you typo (or wordo…?)

you have ‘date’ defined…

in your last post you have ‘name’ not ‘date’…

5

Sorry about that. Yes it is defined as date and I copied and pasted the file path from the browser, and added the extra slashes as suggested. Is it because I’m adding a parameter to the file path?

“” + param + “”

date = timeStampString
results = event.source.parent.getComponent(‘Table’).data
spreadsheet = system.dataset.dataSetToExcel(1, [results])
filePath = “C:\Vat Report\Vat 1\” + date + “.xls”
system.file.writeFile(filePath, spreadsheet)

Thanks

6

Put in a “print filepath” just before you use it so you can see what you really have.

7

Thanks that worked. My problem was that I made a mistake on the date format expression. I changed it to the following and it works great. Thanks pturmel

dateFormat(toDate({Root Container.t_stamp}), “MMM d, yyyy”)

8

Should a URL be used instead as well? What machine ‘c:’ reference from the Gateway script vs the downloaded Designer (on a separate machine)?
Should these Gateway Scripts only be coded from the Gateway Host?