wrapper with IVI-C and IVI-COM

[nonomiya]

Dear All,

I have found many products that support IVI-COM driver from Agilent,
and many many products that support IVI-C with NI's product line.

I got two questions below,
1. why Agilent do not wrap all IVI-COM drivers to IVI-C's one with a IVI-C wrapper.
2. why NI do not wrP All IVI-C drivers to IVI-COM's one with a appropriate IVI-COM wrapper.

What is the difficulities about IVI-C and IVI-COM wrapper?
I am curioused about this,

Much Thanks,

[Emilie S.]

Hello:

1.  I'm sorry to say that I do not have an answer for this one.

2.  Here is some info about IVI-C and NI:

The important point to note here is that the two implementations are designed to be complimentary, and to coexist peacefully on the same system. Neither of the two implementations is going away. Also, neither implementation is preferred over the other in all situations. Obviously there are cases when one is better than the other, but it is definitely not a blanket rule. For example, if you are programming in Visual Basic, an IVI driver with a COM interface is easier to use. However, if you prefer to program in LabWindows/CVI then a C interface is more native to your environment and is easier to use. There are also other environments, such as LabVIEW or Visual C++, where neither implementation is 100% ideal. In those cases, the IVI Foundation specifications leave room open for vendors to support those environments with native wrappers (LV VIs or C++ classes).

NI currently has tools built on the C architecture that you can use to build systems based on IVI. In the future, as the specifications evolve, NI's tools will follow to ensure that end-user systems work without any interruptions. Also, our IDNet web site is open for submissions, so we hope that other vendors will submit their drivers to be distributed from our web site. As for the class drivers, they can be written to call COM or C specific driver.

Regards,

Emilie S.

[thehobbs]

One school of thought is that IVI-COM drivers work well in all programming environments.  This may be why you don't see many wrappers on COM drivers, although you may want to ask Agilent why they don't provide wrappers optimized for other environments.

NI is focused on optimal support for LabVIEW and C-based environments.  That this why we provide IVI-C drivers with optimized LabVIEW wrappers.  This enables optimal IVI usage in LabWindows/CVI and LabVIEW.  NI also understands that users want the source code to a driver (for debugging, modifying, enhancing, etc.) so we provide LabVIEW Plug and Play drivers and the source to the IVI-C drivers.

Jason Hobbs

Instrument Drivers