project style instrument driver

[Albert.Geven]

Maybe I understand your question.

You seem to be asking how can I modify a project style instrument driver and support the specific changes for several programs that are using specific changes.

The problem is that as far as I know that that will generate a chaos in your system and you should not try to do it that way.

An instrument driver contains the general way of accessing an instrument and may be extended to support multiple programs but the best way to do this is  to add to each program the specific routines needed and only add to the driver those routines that are needed in more than one program or those routines that seem to extend the driver without hurting other programs that use the driver.

See the driver as a way to generalize on that specific type of instrument, and not as a library to store routines that are used in a specific program. 

So in my view a driver should make any multi meter a standard multi meter and may have specific routines that are only supported by that instrument, but should not contain routines that are specific for your measurement program.

So extending a driver with routines is OK but then for all users of that system, and of course have a good version control of the driver you are modifying. 

[Davidson_D]

Boone,

If i understood correctly, you want a separate copy of driver for each project you create.

You dont want that driver copy to be changed by others as it is in a common location (C:\Program Files\National Instruments\LabVIEW 8.6\instr.lib).

Firstly, the instrument drivers provided by National instruments are expected to be in the location (C:\Program Files\National Instruments\LabVIEW 8.5\instr.lib).

So if you feel like having a separate copy of driver for every project (As you say, the driver may get changed by some one), that will be overhead as mentioned by Albert.

And if you want to make sure the driver to be not modified by any one,  you may have to do some minor modifications and moving the driver to your project location and relink it.

Should be careful in avoiding the cross linking of the driver that you copy with (C:\Program Files\National Instruments\LabVIEW 8.5\instr.lib)

Thanks,

Davidson