This project is an ongoing effort to understand the structure of the .plf file format and extract valuable information from it. While significant progress has been made, the parser is currently reliable only for simple projects. Handling complex, real-world automation projects will require continued development to address edge cases and all possible variations the file may present.
The application is supposed to work with TIA Portal versions 15 and onwards.
Within the TIA Portal, there is a mechanism that runs a Reorganization Task to eliminate data from the .plf file once its size exceeds approximately 5 KB. Unfortunately, this mechanism seems may remove important information needed to reconstruct the data, which affects the parser’s ability to work with larger files.
To read and analyze the .plf file, was used Imhex by WerWolv, which I highly recommend.
- Navigate to the System folder in a typical TIA Portal project.
- Select the
PEData.plffile. - The reference addresses will be exported to the directory containing the
.plffile in anexport.txtfile.