Tips & Tricks with AX Code

Snippets

Simple snippet example

{
    "comment_snippet": {
    "scope": "st",
    "prefix": ["comment, snippet"],
    "body": [
        "/// Block description 2",
        "/// $(1|place here the comment of method)",
        "/// Return value: $2",
        "${name:default}"
    ],
    "description": "Add an Comment;"
    }
}

Result:

Loop snippet

{
    "loop":
    {
        "prefix": ["loop"],
        "scope": "st",
        "body":[
            "VAR_TEMP",
            "\t index : ${1|INT,LINT|};",
            "END_VAR",
            "FOR index :=  ${1|INT,LINT|}#${2|0,1,X|} TO ${3:EndValue} DO",
            "\t;",
            "END_FOR;"
        ],
    "description": "create a loop section with VAR_TEMP;"
    }
}

Result:

Import global variables

Importing global variables into the VAR_EXTERNAL section of a POU

Format ST code

Documentation

Currently not productive; it might not always work

Documentation link

Further information: Documentation Link

Inline Documentation

In SIMATIC AX you can add comments to your methods or functions with ///

Nice shortcuts

A complete overview of the shortcuts in VS Code/AX Coce you'll find here: VS Code shortcuts

Add selection to next Find match (CTRL+D)

Insert cursor (Alt+Click)

Search & Replace with Regex

Useful search&replace patterns when you want to migrate SCL Code (exported from TIA Portal) into ST:

	Search field	Replace field	Example
Remove all # for variables of a SCL source	#([A-Za-z])	$1	#statVariable --> statVariable
Remove all { S7_SetPoint := 'False' ... }	{[A-Za-z0-9 :=';_.]*}		Bin2 { S7_SetPoint := 'False'} : "typeStatisticsBin"; --> Bin2 : "typeStatisticsBin"
Remove "name"	"([A-Za-z]*)"	$1
TIA-Type to ST-Type	TYPE "([A-Za-z0-9_]*)"	TYPE $1 :
Remove " in type declaration	"([A-Za-z0-9_]*)"	$1

thats's not a migration guide and it's still manual necessary. But it can make the life easier.

Further information

AX Code Documentation

Documentation Link

VS Code Documentation

Snippets collection on GitHub

PLC Open templates

Markdownlint-cli

This workspace will be checked by the markdownlint-cli (there is also documented ho to install the tool) tool in the CI workflow automatically.
To avoid, that the CI workflow fails because of the markdown linter, you can check all markdown files locally by running the markdownlint with:

markdownlint **/*.md --fix

License and Legal information

Please read the Legal information