Data Communications; Datasocket - National Instruments FieldPoint FP-2000 User Manual

Chapter 3 Hardware and Software Configuration

Data Communications

FP-2000/2010/2015 User Manual
Item IDs is
Comm resource name\Device Name\I/O Item name
where the Comm resource name, Device name, and I/O Item name are
the names given in FieldPoint Explorer. For example, an Item ID
associated with one of the I/O Items might be the following:
FP Res\FP-TC-120 @1\Channel 0
In most cases, the preceding steps are all that is required to configure an
OPC client to read from I/O Items of the FieldPoint OPC server. In some
cases, the OPC client might require more information about the FieldPoint
OPC server. The following list contains additional information about the
FieldPoint OPC server, which you may find helpful.
• The FieldPoint OPC server does not require an access path. Some OPC
clients expect the access path to be included in the Item ID name or
might request the access path when you select I/O Items. You should
be able to leave the access path blank (empty string).
• The FieldPoint OPC interface is an out of process server.
• The FieldPoint OPC server supports both synchronous and
asynchronous reads and writes.
• The FieldPoint OPC server uses the GetErrorString method to return
error and diagnostic messages from the FieldPoint server and
hardware. OPC clients that do not support this method might give you
error messages like "Bad, non-specific" along with an error code.
Some OPC clients that do not support this GetErrorString method still
provide a way for you to manually look up the FieldPoint message
corresponding to the error code using this method.
The FP-20xx network module provides several methods for
communicating and sharing data with other FieldPoint systems, computers,
and devices. The most common methods are to use DataSocket, serial VIs,
TCP VIs, UDP VIs, or Data Publishing VIs, as described in the following
sections.

DataSocket

DataSocket, a programming technology based on industry-standard
TCP/IP, simplifies live data exchange between different applications on
one computer or between computers connected via a network. DataSocket
was designed as an easy-to-use, high-performance programming interface
for sharing and publishing live data in measurement and automation
applications. You can use DataSocket VIs to obtain data from other
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