Copying data from an exe program

[tom874d]

Hello

I have an .exe program which updates temperature data real time and performs certain calculations but which I cannot change.  I would like labview to copy this data from the running program and allow me to perform and add whatever computations I need.

There is an export command allowing me to save the data I want to a .txt file, but this is slow and repetitive.  If possible I would like labview to export the data once per min and read/perform calculations on the data.

So my question is: is there a way I can get labview to control the .exe program to output data?

thank you

[Dynamik]

Hi "Tom",

      Assuming whoever developed your .exe did not provide any convenient hooks (like Active-X), this request sounds rather ambitious.  It's a stretch, but one solution may be to control the .exe's GUI using mouse/keyboard events.  Would the export-steps be simple to automate?  Can you afford to spend a day or two to make something work?

      The simple VI (attached) allows you to select a menu-option from the menu of another application.  It does it by recording&playing mouse events.  You'll have to figure-out some stuff on your own (like, maybe, how to automate completion of a file-dialog?)  I wouldn't/won't be surprised if someone points the way to other LabVIEW implementations for these - or other useful windows API functions.  The subject came up recently, I decided it was worth exploring!

      This example is in 7.1

Cheers.