General Information

GENER will detect problems caused by invalid post-processor commands, inappropriate control of the NC machine and incompatibilities due to invalid QUEST responses. In all cases, processing of the CL file will continue until the FINI record is read.

Diagnostic messages identify the problem (or event), the severity of the problem and where possible, any corrective action taken. Also listed are statistical and positional information. For example:

Warning: CUTCOM Option "LENGTH" is not supported by this
         machine and cannot be simulated. Option ignored.
         SEVERITY(04) ISN(35) CLREC(41) ERRNUM(01524001) TOOL(43)

Diagnostic messages are composed of three items: the type, message text and a status line. If the diagnostic occurred from within a macro, there may also be a message indicating the position of the diagnostic within the macro. An additional line may also be output indicating that the macro was terminated due to a serious error.

There are four types of diagnostic messages: Message, Warning, Error and Fatal. Messages are informational and do not indicate a problem. Warnings are generated when an unexpected event occurs that the post-processor can correct for. Error and Fatal diagnostics are generated when the post-processor detects an error that it cannot correct for or make an assumption about.

The diagnostic message text will identify the post-processor command if applicable, followed by a description of the diagnostic and any corrective action taken. For example, suppose the user coded the command LOAD/TOOL,1,OSETNO,3. During post-processing, the following message was output:

Warning: CUTCOM [Called by LOAD] Option "LENGTH" is not supported
         by this machine and cannot be simulated. Option ignored.
         SEVERITY(04) ISN(35) CLREC(41) ERRNUM(01524001) TOOL(43) *NEXT*

The OSETNO option on the LOAD/TOOL command invoked a call to the CUTCOM command, which handles cutter length compensation. However, the CUTCOM logic detected that cutter length compensation was not supported and it output the appropriate diagnostic message. This particular example is one of a diagnostic generated on an indirect call. GENER tracks all indirect calls and places them at the beginning of the diagnostic message text.

The status line is output after the text portion of the diagnostic:

  • SEVERITY indicates the severity level of the message and may have any value between 0 and 99. By tradition, a severity between 0 and 3 is considered informational (i.e., a message); a severity between 4 and 7 is considered a warning; a severity between 8 and 15 is considered an error; and finally, a severity between 16 and 99 is considered a fatal error. GENER uses the severity level to determine if NC program output should be aborted. GENER provides a facility to inhibit the output of diagnostics below a defined severity level (see “Modifying Diagnostic Messages”). Lastly, when processing has completed, GENER returns the value of the highest severity encountered in a program to the operating system.

    Type

    Severity

    Meaning

    MESSAGE

    0 thru 3

    This is the lowest severity. It indicates that something noteworthy has occurred but will have no impact on the final output. This type of warning may be ignored if desired.

    WARNING

    4 thru 7

    This message indicates that a problem has been detected that may or may not adversely affect the final output.

    ERROR

    8 thru 15

    This message indicates that a major problem has been encountered. Final output is affected and may force an editing of the tape output file or a rerun of the APT job.

    FATAL

    16 thru 99

    This is the highest severity. Final output has been affected to the point of rendering it useless. Processing of the program will continue and the listing file will still be created as usual.

  • ISN identifies the original APT source statement that caused the diagnostic. This number can be used with the GENER debugger to set a breakpoint on the source statement in question.

  • CLREC is the internal binary CL record number of the record that was being processed when the diagnostic occurred. This number can be used with the GENER debugger to set a breakpoint on the CL record in question.

  • ERRNUM identifies the diagnostic number. This number can be used with the PPFUN/ 15 command or $FERSTA macro function to control the output of the specific diagnostic (see “Modifying Diagnostic Messages”). The diagnostic message text, severity and state can also be modified by editing the diagnostic in the pos260.err file (see “Error File”).

  • TOOL identifies the currently loaded tool; 0 (zero) or the dummy tool if none.

  • OPNAME identifies the operation name. It is only present if an OPNAME command has been coded with a non-blank operation name string.

  • NEXT is a hyperlink to the next diagnostic in the file. It is only present when using the HTML form of listing output. The choice of HTML or normal listing format is a Configuration option (see “The ICAM Configuration Utility”).

If the diagnostic occurs while processing a macro line, the macro is identified and the macro line causing the diagnostic is listed. If a diagnostic has a severity of 8 or higher, a TERMAC statement will be generated to exit the macro and the following message output:

Message: TERMAC generated due to error(s).