Automated creating or modifying of projects

Neuron Power Engineer provides a tool for the automated creating or modifying of Neuron Power Engineer →projects.

Good to know

(grey lightbulb) The tool is intended for usage by an experienced user of Neuron Power Engineer.

(grey lightbulb)A condition for the successful usage of the tool is the knowledge of the action to be executed as it would be executed in the graphical user interface of Neuron Power Engineer.

(grey lightbulb)The output of the tool is in English only.
In this article:

Preparation

  1. Make sure that Neuron Power Engineer is installed. Have the following information prepared: 

    • The path to the Neuron Power Engineer installation directory 

    • The path to a directory that will be used as the workspace
      In case the directory does not exist, the tool creates it. 

    • the information for the project that should be created or modified – e.g. the path and name for the project and the project template to be used

    • The path to the log configuration file (see below for more information)
      A sample configuration file is included in the installation of Neuron Power Engineer. 

  2. If the JAVA JDK has not already been installed on your computer, install and unpack the JAVA JDK. In case of an installation, also enhance the environment variable PATH of the operating system by the folder to which the JAVA JDK has been installed/unpacked. In case of doubts, ask your administrator to support you in doing so. 

  3. Open a command line: e.g. cmd.exe under Windows and navigate to the Neuron Power Engineer installation directory.  

Invocation

@REM Commands to start the development environment in English
start cmd /c NeuronPowerEngineer.exe -nl en -data <WORKSPACE> -nosplash -vmargs -Dlicenseaccepted=true -Dosgi.requiredJavaVersion=<X.Y> -DLC3useRTS3MetaData=true -Xms256m -Xmx6144m -Dlc3.serverport=50055 -Dlog4j.configuration=file:<LOG-CONFIGURATION> 
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 40  1>NUL
 
@REM Command to create the project based on a template
java -jar util\com.logicals.lc3.command.jar -port 50055 --createProject -projectName <PROJECT> -targetPath <PROJECTPATH> -templateName <TEMPLATENAME>
 
@REM Command to modify the project (replace the content of a file in the project)
java -jar util\com.logicals.lc3.command.jar -port 50055 --modifyProject  -targetFilePath <FILE_TO_BE_MODIFIED> -sourceFilePath <REPLACEMENT_FILE> -binary
 
@REM Command to delete a file in the project
java -jar util\com.logicals.lc3.command.jar -port 50055 --removeProjectFile -targetFilePath <FILE_TO_BE_DELETED>
 
@REM Command to exit the development environment
java -jar util\com.logicals.lc3.command.jar -port 50055 -shutdown

Description of parameters:

Parameter

Description

Example

<WORKSPACE>

absolute path to a workspace to which the project should be imported
Please note:

  • The directory of the workspace must not be located within a directory that is a Neuron Power Engineer project.

  • After the invocation, the workspace will contain a reference to the Neuron Power Engineer project. That means that the Neuron Power Engineer project is not copied into the workspace.
    This is the same behavior as within the graphical user interface of Neuron Power Engineer when you would use the command Import... and the import type Existing Projects into Workspace with the disabled option Copy projects into workspace.

C:\temp\LC3Workspace

<X.Y>

version number of the required Java version
Best practice to determine this version number: Open the file NeuronPowerEngineer.ini  that is located in the installation folder of Neuron Power Engineer. Search the line with the text -Dosgi.requiredJavaVersion=.  Use the specification behind = as the version number.

1.8

<LOG-CONFIGURATION>

path to the log configuration file
All messages of the tool will be output to the device as specified in the log configuration file.

C:\LC3LogConfig\log4j.xml

<PROJECT>

name of the project that should be created

MyProject

<PROJECTPATH>

absolute path to the folder where the project should be created

C:\Projects\

<TEMPLATENAME>

name of the project template which will be the base of the project
The project templates are located in the subfolder templates\projects of the installation folder of Neuron Power Engineer.
The name of the project template is specified in the file Lc3Project.templateconf. If the English language variant of Neuron Power Engineer is started, enter the English name of the project template. If there a blanks in the name of the project template, enclose the name in "".

"Neuron Power Engineer Projekt"

<FILE_TO_BE_MODIFIED>

absolute path and name of the file for which the content should be replaced (= original file)
If this file does not exist, it is automatically created by Neuron Power Engineer.

C:\LC3Projects\MyProject\TestNotes.txt

<REPLACEMENT_FILE>

absolute path and name of the file the content of which is used for the replacement (= replacement file)
The file name of the original file is kept during the replacement. Referring to the example, this means that the content of C:\LC3Projects\MyProject\TestNotes.txt is replace by the content of C:\Templates\DoneTests.txt. After the command has been invoked, the file TestNotes.txt still exists in the project.

(info) If the replacement file is a binary file, add the parameter -binary. This parameter -binary is not required for non-binary files (e.g. text files).

C:\Templates\DoneTests.txt

<FILE_TO_BE_DELETED>

absolute path and name of the file which should be deleted
It is not possbile to delete project folder by using this parameter.

C:\LC3Projects\MyProject\GenericTestNotes.txt

  • The parameter -noSplash is optional. If it is not specified, the splashscreen of Neuron Power Engineer is displayed after the invocation. 

  • The parameter -Dlog4j.configuration is also optional. However, Neuron recommends to specify this parameter so that log events are output. 

  • All other parameters are mandatory. If they are not specified, an appropriate message will indicate that parameters are missing. 

Example for invocation

 
start cmd /c NeuronPowerEngineer.exe -nl en -data C:\temp\LC3Workspace -nosplash -vmargs -Dlicenseaccepted=true -Dosgi.requiredJavaVersion=1.8 -DLC3useRTS3MetaData=true -Xms256m -Xmx6144m -Dlc3.serverport=50055 -Dlog4j.configuration=file:C:\LC3LogConfig\log4j.xml
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 40  1>NUL
 
java -jar util\com.logicals.lc3.command.jar -port 50055 --createProject -projectName MyProject -targetPath C:\Projects\ -templateName "Neuron Power Engineer Project"
java -jar util\com.logicals.lc3.command.jar -port 50055 --modifyProject -targetFilePath C:\LC3Projects\MyProject\TestNotes.txt -sourceFilePath C:\Templates\DoneTests.txt
java -jar util\com.logicals.lc3.command.jar -port 50055 --removeProjectFile -targetFilePath C:\LC3Projects\MyProject\GenericTestNotes.txt  
java -jar util\com.logicals.lc3.command.jar -port 50055 -shutdown

Log configuration file

This file is needed to configure the log4j logging mechanism. The file specifies how log events are output.

Sample log configuration file

 
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<!DOCTYPE log4j:configuration SYSTEM "log4j.dtd">
<log4j:configuration debug="false" xmlns:log4j='http://jakarta.apache.org/log4j/'>
 
  <!-- This configuration logs to console. -->
  <appender name="console" class="org.apache.log4j.ConsoleAppender">
    <param name="target" value="System.out"/>
    <param name="immediateFlush" value="true"/>
    <param name="encoding" value="UTF-8"/>
    <param name="threshold" value="info"/>
    <layout class="org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout">
    <param name="ConversionPattern" value="%d{yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss} %-5p:  %m%n" />
    </layout>
  </appender>
 
  <!-- This configuration logs to a file, with more information than for the console. -->
  <appender name="file" class="org.apache.log4j.DailyRollingFileAppender">
    <param name="file" value="C:\\temp\\logfile.log" />
    <layout class="org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout">
      <param name="ConversionPattern" value="%d{HH:mm:ss} %-5p [THREAD ID=%t] [Method:%M] %c{1}:%L - %m%n" />
    </layout>
  </appender>
  <root>
    <level value="INFO" />
    <appender-ref ref="console" />
    <appender-ref ref="file" />
  </root>
</log4j:configuration>