Engineering station and method for diagnosing a user program

A method for diagnosing a user program for controlling movement and positioning tasks of a plurality of drives which are operated to execute a movement path of an apparatus, the user program triggering individual movement sections of the apparatus by executing program instructions (Bi) which are implemented as lines of code in a text-based program editor, and a movement path of the apparatus and apparatus being depicted as a three-dimensional view in a first output element, the method comprising:

• executing the user program, a position vector of the movement path and a code line index of the line of code being executed at a sampling time point and recorded in a time-discrete manner at sampling time points;
• entering the position vector and the code line index as a pair of values in an assignment table at respective sampling time points;
• generating a graphic element as a polygonal chain for the individual movement sections to depict the movement path, the graphic element being linked to the assignment table and the polygonal chain being superimposed on the first output element to depict the movement path;
• and
• operating the generated graphic element in a force sensitive manner such that a user selects a location with a pointer device on the polygonal chain and obtains a display of an output field with a line of code;
• wherein the displayed line of code has a program instruction which is responsible through the execution for reaching the selected location within the movement section of the apparatus or the position vector.