4.4. Field templates

In order to avoid repetitions of identical field definitions, the field templates were introduced. These have to be placed into a file named "_templates.csv" (either directly in the configuration directory or a subdirectory in which case the templates are only valid for message definitions in that subdirectory).

A field template definition consists of the following columns:

TEMPLATE,DATATYPE,DIVIDER/VALUES,UNIT,COMMENT

The individual columns are these:

• TEMPLATE[:FIELDNAME]
  The name of the template, optionally followed by the field name that will be used when the template is referenced by a message definition.
• DATATYPE: BASETYPE|TEMPLATE[;BASETYPE|TEMPLATE]*
  A list of builtin base data types and/or already defined template names separated by semicolon.
• [DIVIDER/VALUES]: either a DIVIDER or VALUE=NAME[;VALUE=NAME]*
  The divider to apply on the numeric base type or a list of name/value associations separated by semicolon (value either in decimal or starting with "0x" for hex).
• [UNIT]
  The value unit (e.g. "°C").
• [COMMENT]
  A comment for the field.

Example template definition

name	type/templates	divider/values	unit	comment
temp:temperature	D2C		°C
sensor	UCH	0=ok;85=circuit;170=cutoff		sensor status
tempsensor	temp;sensor
calibration	D2C		K
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Example message definition using templates

By using defaults and templates as described above, the example from a previous chapter can be further reduced to this:

type	circuit	name	comment	QQ	ZZ	PBSB	ID	field1	part	type/templates	divider/values	unit	comment
*r	ehp				08	B509	0D
*w	ehp				08	B509	0E
r1		brinetemp					0F00			tempsensor
r;w		brinetempcal					CD00			calibration
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