File I/O

Read and write CLICK nickname CSV and DataView CDV files. These are the same formats that CLICK programming software and ClickNick use.

Nickname CSV

Nickname files map PLC addresses to human-readable names, comments, and initial values.

Read

from pyclickplc import read_csv

records = read_csv("nicknames.csv")

# Look up by address (case-insensitive)
motor = records.addr["ds1"]
print(motor.nickname, motor.comment)

# Look up by tag name (case-insensitive)
tag = records.tag["TankTemp"]
print(tag.address, tag.data_type)

read_csv returns an AddressRecordMap with .addr and .tag lookup dicts.

Write

from pyclickplc import make_address_record, write_csv

records = [
    make_address_record("DS1", nickname="TankTemp", comment="Degrees F"),
    make_address_record("C1", nickname="PumpRun"),
    make_address_record("DF1", nickname="FlowRate"),
]
count = write_csv("nicknames.csv", records)
print(f"Wrote {count} rows")

write_csv accepts any iterable of AddressRecord values (or a mapping keyed by address). Only records with content (nickname, comment, or non-default settings) are written.

Build records

make_address_record creates an AddressRecord from a display address with sensible defaults:

from pyclickplc import make_address_record

record = make_address_record("DS1", nickname="TankTemp")
# AddressRecord(address="DS1", nickname="TankTemp", data_type=DataType.INT16, ...)

Address normalization, data type inference, and default values are handled automatically.

DataView CDV

DataView files define monitoring views for the CLICK programming software. They use UTF-16 LE encoding with a CSV-like structure.

Read and write

from pyclickplc import read_cdv, write_cdv

dataview = read_cdv("dataview.cdv")
write_cdv("output.cdv", dataview)

Build a DataView

from pyclickplc import make_dataview_record, write_cdv

write_cdv("monitoring.cdv", [
    make_dataview_record("DS1"),
    make_dataview_record("C1"),
    make_dataview_record("DF1", new_value=3.14),  # pre-fill a write value
])

write_cdv accepts a list of DataViewRecord values (or a DataViewFile for full control). make_dataview_record infers data type from the address. Use new_value to pre-populate a write value.

Address helpers

Parse and normalize addresses without a client connection:

from pyclickplc import format_address_display, normalize_address, parse_address

parse_address("X001")            # ("X", 1)
normalize_address("x1")          # "X001"
format_address_display("X", 1)   # "X001"

See Addressing for normalization rules and edge cases.