Can LabVIEW read a text file from the Internet?

[Arrington]

I'm using LabVIEW 8.5 and I'd like to read a one-line unformatted text file stored on a web site (example: www.text.com/test.txt).

I have found that I can't do that using the standard Read from Text File subVI; is there a better way?

Thank you for your help.

[nathand]

Use the "Datasocket Read" function found under Data Communication -> Datasocket.  Wire your URL to Connection In, and an empty string to the type input.  The contents of the text file will be returned as the Data output.

[altenbach · Accepted solution]

Don't forget to form the entire url (e.g. starting with ftp or http).

You might also have to append the string [text] to the end of the URL. Check the help.

Here's a snippet:

 

Message Edited by altenbach on 02-13-2010 08:01 AM

[Arrington]

Hey, that works far better than what I had so far... this version gets rid of the quotation marks at the beginning and end of the data.

Thank you!

[jozef.liptak]

Hi,

I tried to read a .txt file like you suggested, bu i get en error: 1181 Protocol not recognized by LV. The file i am trying to read is on a https:// . Can that be the problem? I am using LV 2010.

[rolfk]

Datasocket does not support https, to the best of my knowledge.

[jozef.liptak]

Is it possible somehow to read a .txt file from https:// ? Anybody an idea ? 🙂

[rolfk]

The "easiest" will be to use ActiveX and access the Internet Explorer ActiveX interface for this.

I would love to point you to a library I did last year on Lavag.org, but it needs some more work to be of use to most people.

[smercurio_fc]

LabVIEW 2010 has an SLL VI that can be used with the HTTP GET VI: http://zone.ni.com/reference/en-XX/help/371361G-01/lvcomm/http_client/

Can't say that I've ever tried this, so I don't know if it will work for you. Not sure which security protocol it uses, though.