DataSocket

DataSocket is a technology that simplifies data exchange between an application and other applications, files, FTP servers, and Web servers. It provides one common API to a number of different communication protocols.

DataSocket, both a technology and a group of tools, facilitates the exchange of data and information between an application and a number of different data sources and data targets. These sources and targets include files, HTTP/FTP servers, OLE for Process Control (OPC) servers, and National Instruments DataSocket Servers for publishing live data between applications. Often, these sources and targets are located on a different computer. You can specify DataSocket sources and targets (connections) using URLs (uniform resource locators) that adhere to the familiar URL model.

DataSocket uses an enhanced data format for exchanging measurement data, as well as the attributes of the data. Data attributes might include information such as an acquisition rate, test operator name, time stamp, and quality of data.

Although you can use general purpose file I/O functions, TCP/IP functions, and FTP/HTTP requests to transfer data between different applications, applications and files, and different computers, you must write a significant amount of program code to do so. DataSocket greatly simplifies this task by providing a unified API for these low-level communication protocols. Transferring data across computers with DataSocket is as simple as using a browser to read Web pages on the Internet.