Siemens S7-1200 - Character and String Data Types

PLC concepts
4.4 Data types
S7-1200 Programmable controller
114 System Manual, 03/2014, A5E02486680-AG
DTL
DTL (Date and Time Long) data type uses a12 byte structure that saves information on date
and time. You can define DTL data in either the Temp memory of a block or in a DB. A value
for all components must be entered in the "Start value" column of the DB editor.
Table 4- 30 Size and range for DTL
Length
(bytes)
Format
Value range
Example of value input
12 Clock and calendar
Year-Month-Day:Hour:Minute:
Second.Nanoseconds
Min.: DTL#1970-01-01-00:00:00.0
Max.: DTL#2554-12-31-23:59:59.999
999 999
DTL#2008-12-16-20:30:20.250
Each component of the DTL contains a different data type and range of values. The data
type of a specified value must match the data type of the corresponding components.
Table 4- 31 Elements of the DTL structure
Byte
Component
Data type
Value range
0
Year UINT 1970 to 2554
1
2
Month
USINT
1 to 12
3
Day
USINT
1 to 31
4
Weekday
1
USINT
1(Sunday) to 7(Saturday)
1
5
Hour
USINT
0 to 23
6
Minute
USINT
0 to 59
7
Second
USINT
0 to 59
8
Nanoseconds UDINT 0 to 999 999 999
9
10
11
1
The weekday is not considered in the value entry.
4.4.5
Character and String data types
Table 4- 32 Character and String data types
Data type
Size
Range
Constant Entry Examples
Char
8 bits
ASCII character codes: 16#00 to 16#FF
'A', 't', '@'
String
n+ 2 bytes
n = (0 to 254 character bytes)
'ABC'