Overview

ConnectionStringBuilder is a utility class provided by the UniCon Core layer. It offers a strongly-typed, fluent (chainable) interface for dynamically assembling connection strings for various industrial protocols (S7, Modbus, MQTT, OPC UA, PubSub), completely eliminating syntax errors caused by manual string concatenation and greatly improving development efficiency.

The framework also provides quick connection extension methods for IUniconDriver (e.g., ConnectS7Async) that can be called directly on a driver instance without manually building a connection string.

Usage

Create a protocol-specific Builder instance via the static entry of ConnectionStringBuilder, set properties in a chain, and call Build() to generate the connection string. Alternatively, use the quick extension methods directly on driver instances.

Parameters

S7Builder Parameters

Parameter	Type	Description	Required	Default
cpuType	S7CpuType	PLC CPU type enum (S7200, S7300, S7400, S71200, S71500)	Yes	S7CpuType.S71200
ip	string	PLC IP address	Yes	127.0.0.1
rack	short	Rack number	No	0
slot	short	Slot number	No	1

ModbusBuilder Parameters

Parameter	Type	Description	Required	Default
ip	string	Modbus slave or gateway IP address	Yes	127.0.0.1
port	int	Modbus service port	No	502

OpcUaPubSubBuilder Parameters

Parameter	Type	Description	Required	Default
scheme	PubSubScheme	Transport scheme (Udp, Mqtt)	Yes	PubSubScheme.Udp
host	string	Multicast IP or Broker IP	Yes	224.0.2.14
port	int	Port number	Yes	4840
topic	string	MQTT subscription topic path (valid only in MQTT mode)	No	""

Returns

Build() Return Value

Type	Description
string	A fully assembled, correctly formatted physical connection string

Quick Connection Extension Methods (e.g., ConnectS7Async)

Type	Description
Task<bool>	Async boolean indicating whether the initial connection succeeded

Examples

Example 1: Build an S7 connection string using the strongly-typed fluent API

using UniCon.Core.Helpers;

string connStr = ConnectionStringBuilder.S7()
    .WithCpuType(S7CpuType.S71500)
    .WithIp("192.168.1.10")
    .WithRack(0)
    .WithSlot(1)
    .Build();
// Output: CpuType=S71500;Ip=192.168.1.10;Rack=0;Slot=1

Example 2: Use the quick connection extension method directly (Recommended)

In projects using IDriverRegistry, drivers are created via factory (DI auto-assembles dependencies):

using UniCon.Core;
using UniCon.Core.Helpers;

// Create driver via DI factory (automatically assembles all dependencies)
var driver = _driverRegistry.CreateDriver("S7", "Line1_PLC");
_driverRegistry.Register(driver);

// Strongly-typed, self-documenting quick connection extension method
bool isConnected = await driver.ConnectS7Async("192.168.1.10", S7CpuType.S71500);

Example 3: Build a Modbus connection string

string connStr = ConnectionStringBuilder.Modbus()
    .WithIp("192.168.0.50")
    .WithPort(502)
    .Build();
// Output: ip=192.168.0.50;port=502

Example 4: Build an OPC UA PubSub UDP multicast connection string

string connStr = ConnectionStringBuilder.OpcUaPubSub()
    .WithScheme(PubSubScheme.Udp)
    .WithHost("224.0.2.14")
    .WithPort(4840)
    .Build();
// Output: opc.udp://224.0.2.14:4840

Contributors: Entity-now