Let me start by saying this isn't a combination of products that many vendors support. But then again, this seems to be where the Linux spirit is strongest. 🙂
OK, how do you make it work? Well, first you need a shared library. If the VXIpnp driver is written in LabVIEW source code, you need LabVIEW 6i to compile the driver into a shared library. If the VXIpnp driver is written in C/C++, use gcc/g++ to compile the driver into a shared library.
If the vendor of your specific module did not provide source code, then you will be out of luck and you will need to petition the vendor for either a command set or the source code. (If all you get is the ASCII command set, you will need to call NI-VISA directly rather than the instrument driver. The following
section still applies.)
Then you can use the Perl interface for C libraries and call into the VXIpnp driver. I am certainly no Perl expert but I do know this is possible. I have heard that this may be somewhat tricky, but at least VXIpnp drivers use standard data types like short and long integers (16 and 32 bit specifically) and normal C NUL-terminated strings.
Good luck,
Dan Mondrik
Senior Software Engineer, NI-VISA
National Instruments
