passing string via profibus

[mookie]

IM using a KRC2 robot that communicates to a siemans PLC. The communication for part of the process is done with calling a string parameter to call up a different fastener from the PLC.

Does anyone have a good idea about how to do this? I suggested using ethernet XML for the communication but apparently theres no drivers in place at this moment to do so.

the only other way i can imagine doing this is using string functions to parse each letter/number of the string into ascii code and then converting to an integer and sending the integer out to the Siemens in binary format which is obviously the long way around as well as alot of fun to read back in i would assume (i dont know anything about siemens)