LabPack LabVIEW Toolkit

LabPack is a LabVIEW™ library that reads and writes MessagePack (msgpack) formatted binary data. The msgpack format is designed for efficient, low-level encoding and decoding of messages, specifically for sending and receiving data across network streams. This code library is a valuable tool for creating message architectures when JSON, XML, or similar custom text-based message formats would consume too much network bandwidth, system memory, and/or CPU cycles.

This section of the Field R&D Services Help Documentation contains tutorials, user manuals, developer notes, guides, and API material for the LabPack product. Specific questions can be submitted using the Contact Us form.

• Installation
• Operating System Support
• Copyright

Installation

This section documents installation instructions for the LabPack LabVIEW toolkit.

1. Navigate to the LabPack package on VIPM.io
2. Click on the Install button on the right. The VI Package Manager (available for free from JKI) will start automatically.
3. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation.

Operating System Support

The following operating systems are supported in the LabPack LabVIEW™ Library:

• Windows
• Mac OS
• Linux
• Linux RT

Note, this library uses a shared library to encode and decode MessagePack data. Pre-compiled shared libraries for all systems listed above are provided with the vipm at <LabPack Install Location>\LabPack\Private. Pre-compiled shared libraries for all supported operating systems and CPUs are also available at https://github.com/fieldrndservices/labpack-c/releases. If LabPack is used within a real-time application or executable, the appropriate shared library must be installed on the remote target system. If an absolute path to the LabPack shared library is not passed to the appropriate LabPack Shared Library input, then the LabPack LabVIEW library will search for the shared library in the following locations:

• The directory containing the executable (exe)
• The directory containing the project file (lvproj)
• The libs directory in the same parent directory containing the executable or project
• The libs/LabPack directory in the same parent directory containing the excutable or project
• The data directory in the same parent directory as the executable or project
• The directory of the parent VI
• The src/LabPack/Private folder, i.e. source code distribution location.
• The default system location for shared objects, i.e. on Unix-like systems this would be /usr/lib.
• The <vi.lib>/Field R&D Services/LabPack/Private/ folder, i.e. the VIPM distribution location.

The easiest way to ensure the shared library is installed and discoverable by the LabVIEW library is to include the appropriate shared library in the build specification and place it in the default support directory, i.e. data, as this is included in the above list of search locations.

The name of the shared library depends on the operating system and CPU. For Windows, the shared library is named either labpack.dll (for 32-bit environments) or labpack-x64.dll (for 64-bit environments). The shared library is named liblabpack.dylib for macOS, and it is named liblabpack.so for Linux. For NI Linux RT, the shared library is named either liblabpack-rt.so (for x86_64 CPUs) or liblabpack-arm-rt.so (for ARM CPUs).

Copyright

Copyright © 2017 Field R&D Services, LLC. All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
3. Neither the name of the Field R&D Services nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY Field R&D Services, LLC ''AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL Field R&D Services, LLC BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

Third-party maintained and licensed projects used by LabPack include:

• LabPack-C: Copyright © 2017 Field R&D Services, LLC

LabPack-C: A LabVIEW-friendly C library for encoding/decoding MessagePack data

Copyright © 2017 Field R&D Services, LLC. All rights reserved. (https://github.com/fieldrndservices/labpack-c)

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
3. Neither the name of LabPack, Field R&D Services, nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS ''AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL Field R&D Services, LLC OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

Third-party maintained and licensed projects used by LabPack-C include:

• mpack: Copyright © 2015-2016 Nicholas Fraser

mpack: A C encoder/decoder for the MessagePack serialization format

Copyright © 2015-2016 Nicholas Fraser (https://github.com/ludocode/mpack)

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.