Datasocket being phased out?

[carlos_camargo]

Hello all,

I am having a problem with the datasocket server crashing and in looking for a solution through the forums came upon this link

http://forums.ni.com/ni/board/message?board.id=170&message.id=314367&query.id=427431#M314367

in which TWGomez states in message 5 of the thread that "DataSockets are being phased out" is there some place that this

phasing out is documented?  Someplace official from NI I mean?

thanks in advance,

 C

[Hesloppy]

Hi Carlos,

At this time we do not recommend using datasocket.  Using network shared variables is more recomended than using datasocket, but datasocket is better for dynamically changing systems.  I will check what the future plans of datasockets in LabVIEW are.

Best Regards,

[carlos_camargo]

Thanks Bryan,

I will stop using datasocket and will remove it from code under development.  Please post what your find out regarding future plans for datasocket.  Your recommendation regarding network shared variables also seems a bit hedged.  Is it because they are not supported (for hosting) on Linux?  Is it that network shared variables are also possibly on the cutting block?  Is the best solution to go with either TCP or UDP?

[hecmar.arreola]

I tried Shared Variables and didn't like them.  They don't seem to have the same flexibility as DataSockets do.  I have an application that relies on DataSockets heavily.  The network objects are abstracted so it wouldn't be too difficult to change over to something like Shared Variables...but I'd rather not.  What are the alternatives to SharedVariables if DataSockets is being phased out?

[Ben]

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Hesloppy wrote:

Hi Carlos,

At this time we do not recommend using datasocket.  Using network shared variables is more recomended than using datasocket, but datasocket is better for dynamically changing systems.  I will check what the future plans of datasockets in LabVIEW are.

Best Regards,

---

At this time choosing to drop support for Datasockets would be a very bad idea. NSV are not replacements for datasockets. There are many application that interact with third party devices that are only accesable via datasockets.

Ben

[jdr_ni]

I would like to start out by saying that we have no plan current plan to drop support for DataSocket. 

I suspect that some of the confusion here is caused because the term "DataSocket" has multiple meanings. DataSocket can refer to the DSTP data-exchange protocol, and it can also refer to the API available both on the LabVIEW palette and as an ActiveX control which supports a number of data exchange mechanisms including DSTP and the NI-PSP protocol used by the shared variable. NI does encourage customers to use the shared variable protocol rather than the DSTP protocol for their apps, although we continue to provide support for DSTP. I suspect that this is where the confusion about DataSocket being phased out comes from. The DataSocket API is still actively supported as a compliment to the Shared Variable nodes, as well as a client for other data transmission mechanisms such as OPC.

I am also curious about the above comment. When you say that DataSocket allows access to third party devices, are you referring to the ability of the DataSocket API to act as an OPC client or something else?

J.D. Robertson

Senior Software Engineer

National Instruments

[Ben]

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JD Robertson wrote:

I would like to start out by saying that we have no plan current plan to drop support for DataSocket. 

...

I am also curious about the above comment. When you say that DataSocket allows access to third party devices, are you referring to the ability of the DataSocket API to act as an OPC client or something else?

J.D. Robertson

Senior Software Engineer

National Instruments

---

Thank you JD!

 I appreciate your quick response to squash this rumour before it spreads.

Correct!

The Datasocket API acting as a client let me talk to PLC's not supported otherwise. A weird case that comes to mind was one who's values where stored as BCD so I had to do the conversion myself.

Ben

[carlos_camargo]

Thanks for all the info.  I decided to get rid of datasockets for networked data transfers as I don't see much value over simple tcp or udp and used globals for interprocess communication.  Recall that my datasocket server was crashing with no apparent reason.   I figured it was better to stick to well understood protocols anyhow.