xml and labview

[Roberto Bonino]

As a result of my struggle to let different systems talk together, I
developed daqXML( see http://www.daqxml.org ). I made daqXML
opensource. You can find it also at http://www.xml.org and
http://www.sourceforge.net." The difference between daqXML and other
xml-labview initiatives is that daqXML wants to be totally platform
independent, Labview being one possibility to implement the standard

In short :
daqXML is a language and a model to describe instruments and
measurements. The architecture of a daqXML system is composed of 4
packages that can be hosted by the same computer or distributed across
different computers:
a STATION to performs a measurement
a REGISTRY to track available stations
a DATACLIENT that accesses one or more stations and runs m
easurements
through them
a DATASTORE to store the resulting data.

The packages communicate by exchanging daqXML files through http and
ftp.
You will note a resemblence with the webservices concept. Actually,
the next step is to implement the whole system as a webservice:
implementing SOAP is my next project.

Using this architecture I can ,for example, easily establish
communications between Labview and a Web Server. The server
application reads the daqXML description file, and automatically
creates an interface with forms that a user can fill for the
measurment parameters.

You can find a (rudimentary )demo of this at http://www.daqxml.org.
The server side uses php.

I do hope Labview will increase support for XML: I had to write my own
XML parser in Labview for the daqXML systems. If you are interested,
you can download it freely and at your own risk from the daqXML site .
One day I will also write the documentation 🙂 .

Comments , ideas and contributions to the open source act
ivity is
welcome

Roberto Bonino
Adance
http://www.adance.com http://www.daqxml.org