Variables

Values a program reads and writes, and the way Stackmill and the robot say things to each other.

Types

Booleans, integers, floating-point numbers, text, positions and joint positions — each also available as an array or as a fixed set of choices.

A variable can be marked read-only where it reports something rather than controls it.

User and generated variables

• User variables are yours: a counter, a mode, a threshold.
• Generated variables are produced by Stackmill from the project — the list of tools, the list of references, the recipes, the programs. They exist so a program can refer to "the current recipe" without hard-coding a number that changes the next time you edit the project.

Prefer a generated variable wherever one exists. A program written against them survives edits that a program written against numbers does not.

FANUC registers

On the robot, values live in registers: numeric registers, position registers, digital inputs and outputs. Stackmill maps what it needs onto them and writes the map when you export.

You rarely need to care which register is which — but when reading a program on the pendant, or when a controller reports an error against a register number, this is the map that explains it.