TP editor with breakpoints

🎉 Introduction

The Fanuc SDK unlocks a hidden gem in Fanuc robots: the ability to set breakpoints! 🛑🤖

Although this feature has been natively supported on Fanuc controllers for decades, it's remained in the shadows because it's not integrated into the TP Editor (TPE) of ROBOGUIDE or Teach Pendant. 😴

This feature is a game-changer for developers who want to edit programs , or at the very least , pause execution at specific lines without building complicated synchronization mechanisms using flags. 🏁✨

❓ What's a Breakpoint?

A breakpoint is a pause point in a program 🧘‍♂️. It lets you halt execution at a specific line to inspect what's going on , super handy for debugging!

You can add multiple breakpoints across your codebase , whether it's a TP program or even a Karel one! 💥📜

🔧 How to Add or Remove a Breakpoint?

The Telnet protocol natively supports breakpoint manipulation. 💻🔌
Here are the available commands:

• FanucRobot.Telnet.AddBreakpoint: Add a breakpoint at a specific line 🎯
• FanucRobot.Telnet.GetBreakpoints: Retrieve the list of active breakpoints 📋
• FanucRobot.Telnet.RemoveAllBreakpoints: Remove all current breakpoints 🧹

⚠️ Note: Breakpoints are automatically removed when a task is aborted.

🧪 Example

using UnderAutomation.Fanuc;
using UnderAutomation.Fanuc.Telnet;

  public class Breakpoints
  {
    static void Main()
    {
      // Create a new Fanuc robot instance
      FanucRobot robot = new FanucRobot();

      // Set connection parameters
      ConnectionParameters parameters = new ConnectionParameters("192.168.0.1");
      parameters.Telnet.Enable = true;
      parameters.Telnet.TelnetKclPassword = "TELNET_PASS";

      // Connect to the robot
      robot.Connect(parameters);

      /**/
      // Add a breakpoint at line 10 of TP or Karel program MyProgram
      robot.Telnet.AddBreakpoint("MyProgram", 10);

      // List all breakpoints of TP program MyProgram
      BreakpointsResult result = robot.Telnet.GetBreakpoints("MyProgram");
      foreach (Breakpoint breakpoint in result.Breakpoints)
      {
        Console.WriteLine($"Breakpoint at line {breakpoint.Line}");
      }

      // Remove all breakpoints of TP program MyProgram
      robot.Telnet.RemoveAllBreakpoints("MyProgram");
      /**/
    }

  }

🧠 What If We Prototyped a TP Editor with Breakpoints?

Well… it's actually easier than you'd think thanks to the Fanuc SDK! 😄
The hard part? Building the syntax-highlighted code editor itself. 🎨

Here's how we can quickly prototype one using WinForms with the following tools:

• A TreeView to display *.ls files 🌳
• A RichTextBox with syntax highlighting for TP code 🌈
• A "magic margin" to set breakpoints, show the execution line, and display line numbers starting from the /MN section 🪄
• Buttons to save, run the program, and more 🎛️

We'll use the SDK's FTP capabilities to:

• List available files 📁
• Read content of *.ls files 📖
• Upload modified programs 🚀
• Monitor tasks in the background: task names, call stacks, and the current line being executed 🔄

We'll also use the SDK's Telnet features to:

• Start and stop program execution ⏯️
• And hey , let's go wild , why not add step-by-step execution too? 🐾

💡 Check out this C# class on GitHub: TPEditorControl

And here's a quick video demo of what it looks like in action ⬇️
This sample is part of the Showcase demo app for Windows, available for download here. ⬇️

🚀 Let's Go Even Further

The possibilities here are endless! 🌌 Imagine the following upgrades:

• Support for Karel: editing, syntax highlighting, breakpoints... you name it! 🤓
• Smart auto-completion ✍️
• Real-time visualization of variables and registers 📊
• Full call stack display (In our current demo, we simplify this by assuming the task and program are one and the same)
• And sure, WinForms is nice and all... but why not dream bigger?
  A VSCode extension, perhaps? Or a full-blown modern IDE integration , with a graphical view of TP instructions?! 😍
  Just maybe that's a teaser of what UnderAutomation might be cooking up... 🔮😉