SubDevice config from ESI XML

[JonasFovea]

Hi!
As stated in the README, loading the SubDevice information from an ESI XML file is planned.

Is this already under development?

If not, how is this feature planned?

[JonasFovea]

So in my opinion it would be nice to have an abstraction of the Subdevices, which offer functions to set the field values by setter functions named from the field name.
And then, as you have configured all fields, you would generate the addresses and values from this configuration, which is then sent to the device at once.

And generating this abstraction from the ESI file would be helpful.
But this would not have to be done for every compilation as it would be done if one would try to accomplish this in a build script or macro. So maybe a cli tool is the better choice here.

Does this make sense for others?
I'm new to EtherCAT, so I'm not sure if that would help the common workflow...

[jamwaffles]

I've done a couple of experiments around this but haven't had the time/brain power to really dig in yet. This is a very often requested feature so will definitely happen at some point, but I want to do it right so ESI loading isn't a kludgy afterthought. I appreciate your patience for this feature!