Lee Atchison
Hewlett-Packard Professional Books

Published July, 1996 by Prentice Hall PTR (ECS Professional)

Copyright 1997, 352 pp.
Paper
ISBN 0-13-227950-9
$59.00

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    Scientific And Engineering Computing

As long as there have been machines, engineers have been testing them. Today's object-oriented programming languages off unique advantages for devising and executing test routines for all types of instrumentation. This book introduces C++ concepts in a framework designed especially to suit the concerns of the test and measurement community. C++ allows software engineers to take advantage of these special object-oriented features:

• Information hiding, which permits the creation of general-purpose routines that can be easily customized to specific instruments
• Polymorphism, which allows the substitution of individual elements of the program without restructuring, and
• Variable data types, which can contain all the information needed to perform a specific test.

The book begins with a general overview of classical test systems: what they are, how they work, and how they are programmed. Parts 2 and 3 are at the heart of the book, describing the fundamentals of object-oriented programming and how they are applied to testing and measurement systems. Detailed descriptions are given for I/O control classes, instrument classes, and measurement and test classes. A complete working example of a C++ test system is provided. Advanced topics are offered for readers who want more detailed information on specific applications, and an appendix gives a proposal for creating a standard interface to instrument drivers in C++.


@ Each chapter concludes with practical exercises, some have answers provided at the end of the book. The book and the enclosed Windows-compatible CD-ROM offer copious examples of real C++ code to illustrate the concepts. This book is intended for test and measurement engineers who are learning to develop object-oriented test applications. It presumes a familiarity with traditional test and measurement instrumentation and experience in some programming language, such as C. It is helpful to understand the basic concepts of object-oriented programming, though actual OO programming experience is not required.



LEE ATCHISON is a scientist/engineer in Hewlett-Packard's Measurement Systems Division.



1. PROGRAMMING TEST SYSTEMS.

1. Test Systems.
2. Components of a Test System.
3. Software for Test Systems.
4. Programming a Test System.

2. OBJECT ORIENTED PROGRAMMING AND DESIGN.

5. Object Oriented Programming.
6. Object Oriented Programming in C++.
7. Object Oriented Design.

3. OBJECT ORIENTED TEST & MEASUREMENT SYSTEMS.

8. High level OO Design of a T&M System.
9. Building and Instrument I/O Class.
10. Instrument Classes.
11. Measurement and Test Classes.
12. Building an Object Oriented T&M System.

4. ADVANCED TOPICS.

13. Creating OO Data Types.
14. Error Handling.
15. Advanced Instrument Classes.

APPENDICES.

A. OO-SCPI and Instrument Standards.
B. Contents of Disk.
C. Solutions to Exercises.
D. Other Books of Interest.
G. Glossary of Terms.