Introducing LJFuse

Linux and Mac OS X users, prepare to get happy. For years we’ve had great language support for C and Python through the Exodriver and LabJackPython, and we’ve recently documented how to use LabVIEW on Mac OS X to call the Exodriver. We wanted programmers in other languages to leverage the work we’ve done, so we’re releasing LJFuse. LJFuse is a program that creates files for all the connections on a LabJack. For example, to read analog input AIN0 on a U6, read a file named “AIN0”:

  
$ cat MyU6/connection/AIN0
2.500
  

Now the problem of reading and writing to a USB LabJack has been reduced to reading and writing to a file. To show how simple it is, we wrote sample applications in the shell, C, Python, Ruby, PHP, Perl, Java, Scala, and LabVIEW. Here’s the sample Ruby application that logs AIN0 once per second with a timestamp in CSV format:

Without LJFuse, this type of application isn’t possible in Ruby. Even in C and Python, where it was possible without LJFuse, it’s now even simpler.

LJFuse isn’t perfect. Simple things are really simple (trivial), but hard things are still hard or impossible. If you have a use for LJFuse that isn’t simple yet, let us know.