CODESYS 3.5 - PLC Programming With Structures - Lesson 1 - What Are Structures?
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In this lesson we take a clear look at what structures are, why they matter, and how they transform the way you organise and standardise your data inside a PLC project.
A structure is simply a grouped set of variables that can be made up of mixed data types and accessed through a single variable instance. Instead of working with loose tags scattered throughout your program, structures let you build organised, repeatable, and reliable patterns of data that are easy to instantiate and easy to maintain.
We begin by comparing a typical beginner style program with loose tags, where naming conventions are the only thing keeping the project organised. From there, we move into a structured version of the same logic and show how one structure, such as a motor or tank structure, can tidy up your project by placing all related elements under a single data type.
You will also see how structures support nesting, how the depth depends on your PLC platform, and how this approach allows your project to scale more easily. The lesson then takes this another step further by placing the logic into a function block. Instead of passing many individual tags into the block, we pass the structure itself, which results in cleaner interfaces, far less room for error, and much stronger standardisation.
This session also highlights a major advantage of structures. If you expand a structure later by adding new elements, any function blocks using that structure automatically gain those elements on their interfaces. This removes a huge amount of repetitive rework and reduces the risk of missing or mismatched inputs.
By the end of the lesson, you will understand that a structure is simply a named collection of related data, but the impact it has on clarity, quality, scalability, and maintainability in Codesys is significant.
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