Test equipment as objects using classes & inheritances

[santo_13]

Yeah, the 'interface' class introduced in LV2020 is a boon to HAL/MAL.

With MAL/HAL you get flexibility but lose performance (you might have to implement instrument-specific redundant operations just for the sake of simplifying).

If you or your company is looking for a professional consultation and implementation, please contact me.

[WavePacket]

Thanks for the offer, though I'm a LabVIEW programmer myself just trying to learn. Seems like MAL is now easy and clean to implement with interfaces.

[WavePacket]

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@crossrulz wrote:

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@WavePacket wrote:

So, if I'm understanding things correctly the HAL is 1., and the MAL is 2 through 4?

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Technically, 2 though 4 is the HAL.  1 is just a low lever driver.  A MAL would be a "Read Spectrum" class that uses whatever instrument is required to take that measurement, whether it is an OSA, oscilloscope, etc.  But this is all semantics.

Personally, I have not found a good way to actually do a MAL.  So I would not worry too much about that.

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Just thought that I would add that I'm getting convinced that MAL is achievable rather seamlessly using interfaces. As an example, you could have an interface with "Measure Voltage" as a method returning a double. Voltmeters, sourcemeters, o-scopes could all inherit from that interface and implement the method "Measure Voltage" as appropriate.

You could write your main test-software using just the interface. Seems like a MAL.