Abstract: A system is formed with a controller that is connected to and is adapted to control devices. A tool is attachable to the controller and functions to create control program for specifying the device by an object name, to create correlation data for correlating the control program with device data on the device, and to download the correlation data to the controller.

Abstract: A system is formed with a controller connected to devices and a tool. The controller controls the devices by a control program which specifies the devices by their object names. Correlation data correlating their communication addresses, assigned memory address and device names are stored in an object database. Data are transmitted and received by referencing the correlation data to specify an access address from a device name used as a key. In the case of a reuse, only the addresses need to be updated without modifying the control program.

Abstract: A system is formed with a controller connected to devices and a tool. The controller controls the devices by a control program which specifies the devices by their object names. Correlation data correlating their communication addresses, assigned memory address and device names are stored in an object database. Data are transmitted and received by referencing the correlation data to specify an access address from a device name used as a key. In the case of a reuse, only the addresses need to be updated without modifying the control program.

Abstract: Data stored in a data base (21) includes crisp numbers expressed by definite numerical values, fuzzy numbers expressed by attaching "about" to numerical values, and fuzzy labels represented by fuzzy language. Status codes are used to distinguish these types of data, and data is stored in the data base (21) upon attaching the status codes thereto. Membership function data accessed using data and the status codes attached thereto is stored in a fuzzy data dictionary (22). When a retrieval condition has been given, data related to this retrieval condition is retrieved in the data base (21). If this data is data involving a fuzzy concept, the membership function data corresponding to this data is extracted from the fuzzy data dictionary (22). Fuzzy-retrieval execution means (20) calculates the degree of membership of the membership function data with respect to the retrieval condition and outputs the result through an output unit (24).