BrowseTags method (Collector object) | VBA vs C#

Question

For a while i've been trying to make a standalone program in c#, which uses the BrowseTags function from iHistorian_SDK. (iFix 5.8 and Historian 7.0)

First I made this function in VBA where it works great, but due to VBA being single threaded, I want to moive it out of VBA.

My VBA code that works today:

Public connectedServer As Object
Public myServerManager As Object


Private Sub TestBrowseFunction()    
    Call BrowseTagsFromHistorianCollector("SVNF-IFIX-HIS01", "SVNF-IFIX-SCA01_iFIX")    
End Sub

Public Function BrowseTagsFromHistorianCollector(ByVal HistServer As String, ByVal HistCollector As String, Optional AdditionsOnly As Boolean = False, Optional SourceFilter As String = "*", Optional DescriptionFilter As String = "*")
    On Error Resume Next
    Dim MyTags As Variant
    Dim Tag As Variant

    Set connectedServer = Nothing
    Set MyServerManager = CreateObject("iHistorian_SDK.ServerManager")
    DoEvents

    'Make sure Historian is installed correctly'
    If MyServerManager Is Nothing Then
        Err.Raise 0, , "Error Creating iHistorian Server Manager - please check to see if Historain Client is correctly installed on your system", vbOKOnly, "test"
        Exit Function
    End If

    'Create iHistorian server object'
    Set connectedServer = CreateObject("iHistorian_SDK.Server")

    'Check to see if the connection is established, else connect.'
    If CheckConnection = False Then connectedServer.Connect (HistServer)
    If CheckConnection = True Then

        'Browse the collector for tags.'
        Set MyTags = connectedServer.collectors.Item(HistCollector).BrowseTags(AdditionsOnly, SourceFilter, DescriptionFilter)

        'Loop all the tags from the collector'
        For Each Tag In MyTags.Item
            'INSERT CODE TO DO FOR EACH TAG HERE!'
            Debug.Print Tag.tagName
        Next

    End If

End Function



' make sure that we are connected to a server'
Public Function CheckConnection() As Boolean
    On Error GoTo errc

    If connectedServer Is Nothing Then
        CheckConnection = False
        Exit Function
    End If

    If Not connectedServer.Connected Then
        CheckConnection = False
        Exit Function
    End If

    If connectedServer.ServerTime < CDate("1/1/1970") Then
        CheckConnection = False
        Exit Function
    End If

    CheckConnection = True
Exit Function

errc:
  CheckConnection = False
End Function

This works great. But in my attempt to convert the same function over to C# i keep getting errors.

First i connect to my historian server, which is pretty painless.

            tsStatus.Text = "Connecting to " + HistServer;
            try
            {
                connectedServer = new iHistorian_SDK.Server();
                connectedServer.Connect(HistServer);
                tsStatus.Text = "Connected to " + HistServer;
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                Debug.Print("Server connection threw exception: " + ex);
                tsStatus.Text = "Failed connecting to " + HistServer;
            }

My status label before i try to connect:

My status label after i try to connect:

After the connection is established, I would like to be able to do something like what i've done in VBA.

Set MyTags = connectedServer.collectors.Item(HistCollector).BrowseTags(AdditionsOnly, SourceFilter, DescriptionFilter)

My c# attempt goes as follows

            iHistorian_SDK.TagRecordset MyTags;
            MyTags = new iHistorian_SDK.TagRecordset();

            MyTags = connectedServer.Collectors.Item("SVNF-IFIX-SCA01_iFIX").BrowseTags(false, "*", "*");

Does anyone know how I can come around this, or if it's even possible in C# to browse tags with the same methode of the collector object.

I've seen this video a few times so I would assume it's possible, they just skip the code where they actually browse tags.

Thanks in advance /T

Answer 1

The parenthesis in VBA is an indexer. Try to replace .Collectors.Item.("...") with .Collectors.Item.["..."]

Answer 2

If you check the source code for the video link you provided (I.e. The client SDK sample), they aren't using the collectors to query the tags.

cmdBrowseTags_Click is using the ITags "Query" method to 'Browse Tags'.

Here is the GE provided help doco example included in "iHistClientAccessAPI.chm":

TagQueryParams query = new TagQueryParams();
List<Tag> list = new List<Tag>(), temp = null;

query.Criteria.TagnameMask = "*";

// simple query
connection.ITags.Query(ref query, out list);

// paged query
list.Clear();
query.PageSize = 100; // return at most 100 results per request
while (connection.ITags.Query(ref query, out temp))
  list.AddRange(temp);
list.AddRange(temp);

I prefer something like this (includes the server connection for completeness):

ServerConnection serverConnection = new ServerConnection(
new ConnectionProperties
{
    ServerHostName = "MyHistorianHostName",
    Username = "MyUserName",
    Password = "MyPassword",
    ServerCertificateValidationMode = CertificateValidationMode.None
});

serverConnection.Connect();

if (serverConnection.IsConnected())
{
    List<Tag> tagList = new List<Tag>();
    TagQueryParams tagQueryParams = new TagQueryParams
    {
        Criteria = new TagCriteria { TagnameMask = "*" }, // Wilcard, get all tags.
        Categories = Tag.Categories.All, // Change this to Basic fo mimimal info.
        PageSize = 100 // The batch size of the while loop below..
    };

    bool isQuery = true;
    while (isQuery)
    {
        isQuery = serverConnection.ITags.Query(ref tagQueryParams, out var tags);
        tagList.AddRange(tags);
    }

    // At this point, tagList contains a list of all tags that matched your wildcard filter.
    // To filter to a specific collector, you could then do something like:
    var collectorTagList = tagList.Where(t => t.CollectorName == "MyCollector");
}

Goodluck :)