Address Space Prototyping Tool (asp.exe)

Getting Started

The OPC UA Address Space Prototyping (asp.exe) is an engineering tool and can be utilized in several ways:

  • creates UA Address Space populated using input XML files compliant with the UANodeSet schema defined in Part 6 Annex F.

  • validates an instance of the UA Address Space against the OPC UA specification 1.04.

  • exports XML file compliant with the ModelDesign schema that may be used as the input for the OPC UA Information Model Compiler.

These instructions will get you a copy of the software up and running on your local machine for development and testing purposes. See deployment for notes on how to deploy the project on a live system.

Syntax

asp { filePath } [(-e | --export=) filePath] [ (-s | --stylesheet=)*stylesheetName* ] (-n | --namespace=) ns [--nologo]

asp [--help] [--version]

asp [help] [version]

Argument

Argument
Description

filePath

Specifies the input file to populate the internal UA Address Space. At least one file containing UA Address Space model compliant with UANodeSet schema must be specified. Many files can be entered at once.

General Options

Option
Description

help

Displays command syntax and options for the tool. It halts processing and displays the help screen. The help screen is also displayed when the parsing process fails, along with the clear and explicit description of every error encountered. The switch or the built-in help verb can be used.

version

Prints version information. The switch or the built-in version verb can be used.

nologo

Suppresses the banner.

ModelDesign Options

Option
Description

e[ xport ] path

Specifies the output file containing the ModelDesign XML document.

s[ tylesheet ] stylesheetName

Name of the stylesheet document (XSLT - eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformations). With XSLT you can transform an XML document into any text document.

n[ amespace ] ns

Specifies the namespace of the model to be processed.

Command-line Syntax

The following table describes the notation used to indicate command-line syntax.

Notation
Description

Text without brackets or braces

Items you must type as shown

Text Italic

Placeholder for which you must supply a value

[Text inside square brackets]

Optional items

{Text inside braces}

Items that can be repeated

| Vertical bar

Separator for mutually exclusive items; choose one

Deployment

The current binary release containing ready to use application is available on the repository Releases page. Download and run the file to unzip the content to the selected folder. Now you may run the application file asp.exe. The section Examples cover details on how to get started using attached examples.

The application is located on the GitHub at OPC-UA-OOI and maintained as the project

Examples

Common Task Scrips

There are the following Windows Command shell scripts attached to the software and located in the main folder where the downloaded file has been unzipped:

  • DoDisplayHelp.cmd - displays a help screen and version information

  • DoValidate.cmd - validates the UA Address Space content populated using the XMLModels\DataTypeTest.NodeSet2.xml XML document

  • DoExport.cmd - validates the UA Address Space populated as above and exports the model to the XMLModels\DataTypeTest.ModelDesign.xml

NOTE: The folder XMLModels also contains an example DataTypeTest.NodeSet2.xml XML document compliant with UANodeSet used by above-mentioned scripts. For your convenience, the folder also contains relevant schema files.

How to Display Help

Run the script DoDisplayHelp.cmd or enter the following command

asp --help --version

It allows you to display a help screen and version information. A similar screen is used to report syntax errors to the end user.

How to validate UA Address Space consistency

Run the script DoValidate.cmd or enter the following command

asp "XMLModels\DataTypeTest.NodeSet2.xml"

The screen will contain a verbose listing of diagnostic messages related to the processing of the input file DataTypeTest.NodeSet2.xml The messages can be examined to improve the files used to populate the UA Address Space and remove any inconsistency against the OPC UA Specification 1.04.

How to Export Selected Model to ModelDesign

Run the script DoExport.cmd or enter a similar command to the following one

asp "XMLModels\DataTypeTest.NodeSet2.xml" -e "XMLModels\DataTypeTest.ModelDesign.xml" -s XMLstylesheet

The screen will contain a verbose listing of diagnostic messages related to the processing of the input file - DataTypeTest.NodeSet2.xml in this example. All inconsistency problems will be fixed on a best-effort attempt basis. Finally, the model will be exported to the file XMLModels\DataTypeTest.ModelDesign.xml.

The model contains the XSLT instruction

<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="XMLstylesheet"?>

to transform XML documents into other formats (like transforming XML into HTML, PDF, mark-down, etc).

  • XSL (eXtensible Stylesheet Language) is a styling language for XML.

  • XSLT stands for XSL Transformations.

Have a look at W3C documentation XSLT Introduction to get more about XML transformation

Remarks

  • Versioning

We use Semantic Versioning 2.0.0 for versioning. For the versions available, see the releases page of the project.

  • Related work

The ModelDesign exporter has been derived from the CAS Address Space Model Designer component.

  • Contributing

Please read CONTRIBUTING.md for details, and the process for submitting pull requests to us. Let me know in case any problems related to documentation, application asp.exe or the libraries is encountered.

  • License

This software is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE.md file for details.

  • Version limitations

See also

PreviousAddress Space Management ImplementationNextUAModelDesignExport Library

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