MeasurementLink Support for Python v1.3.0
What's Changed
- Simplified session management (#386 #389 #402 #426 #429 #432 #433 #436 #438 #440 #442 #446 #466 #469 #480 #481 #482)
- The
MeasurementContext
class now providesreserve_session(s)
methods, eliminating the need to explicitly instantiate aSessionManagementClient
and passmeasurement_service.context.pin_map_context
to it. Example:with measurement_service.context.reserve_sessions(pin_names) as reservation: ...
- The
reserve_session(s)
methods now accept a single pin name in addition to a list of pin names. - The reservation classes now provide
initialize_${driver}_session(s)
methods for initializing modular instrument sessions. These methods are designed to be used in awith
block. They yield one or multipleSessionInformation
objects, which now contain a reference to the session object.
Example:with reservation.initialize_nidcpower_sessions() as session_infos: for session_info in session_infos: session_info.session.channels[session_info.channel_list].initiate()
- The reservation classes now provide
get_${driver}_connection(s)
methods for querying connections between pins and instrument channels. These methods return one or multipleConnection
objects, which also contain a reference to the instrument session object.
Example:vdd_connection = reservation.get_nidcpower_connection("Vdd") measurement = vdd_connection.session.channels[vdd_connection.channel_name].measure_multiple()
- The reservation classes also provide:
create_nidaqmx_task(s)
andget_nidaqmx_connection(s)
methods for NI-DAQmx.- Generic
initialize_session(s)
andget_connection(s)
methods for custom session types, such as instrument drivers based on VISA.
- The new reservation methods have type hints, which enable LSP-enabled text editors such as VS Code and PyCharm to auto-complete references to driver-specific session objects. For example,
reservation.get_nidmm_connection(pin).session.
should auto-complete by displaying the methods for thenidmm.Session
class. To support these type hints, the new methods use generic protocol classesTypedSessionInformation[TSession]
andTypedConnection[TSession]
. - The
reservation.session_info
property now includes the session object(s) in the returnedSessionInformation
objects, if they have been created. However, clients are encouraged to use the type-safeTypedSessionInformation[TSession]
objects returned fromreservation.initialize_${driver}_session(s)
. - TestStand code modules can also use the new
initialize_${driver}_sessions
methods. These methods accept an optionalinitialization_behavior
enum parameter, which hasINITIALIZE_SESSION_THEN_DETACH
andATTACH_TO_SESSION_THEN_CLOSE
enum values designed for this use case. - The example measurements and TestStand code modules have been updated to use the new session management API. As such, most of the examples now require
ni-measurementlink-service
version 1.3.0 or later. For example measurements that work with previous versions, use the examples zip file provided with that release on GitHub.
- The
- Configuration via
.env
files (#421 #425 #441)- You can now configure
ni-measurementlink-service
settings by setting environment variables or creating a.env
file.- A
.env
file is a text file containing environment variables in the formVAR=value
. - The
.env
may be located in the measurement service's current working directory or one of its parent directories. For example, you can place a.env
file at the root of this GitHub repo, in theexamples/nidcpower_source_dc_voltage
directory, or inC:\ProgramData\National Instruments\MeasurementLink
for configuring statically registered services. - If the current working directory and its parents do not contain a
.env
file, the search falls back to the script/EXE path (if there is one) or the path of the Python module calling intoni-measurementlink-service
(to support TestStand code modules). - Support for parsing the
.env
file is implemented by the 3rd partypython-decouple
package.
- A
- The modular instrument
initialize_${driver}_sessions(s)
methods allow you to use.env
settings to override the IVI option string and specify simulation options.
Example:# Add this to your .env file to enable NI-DCPower simulation with PXIe-4141 instruments. MEASUREMENTLINK_NIDCPOWER_SIMULATE=1 MEASUREMENTLINK_NIDCPOWER_BOARD_TYPE=PXIe MEASUREMENTLINK_NIDCPOWER_MODEL=4141
- The example measurements no longer have a hardcoded
USE_SIMULATION
constant that you must edit to enable/disable simulation. To enable simulation for all example measurements, copy.env.simulation
to.env
in the 'examples' directory of this Git repo. - The VISA example measurements use
python-decouple
directly to readMEASUREMENTLINK_VISA_DMM_SIMULATE
from the.env
file. - There are a few other
.env
settings for overriding the NI gRPC Device Server configuration and enabling feature toggles. For a complete reference, see.env.sample
in the 'examples' directory of this Git repo.
- You can now configure
- Make gRPC extensions public (#545)
- The
GrpcChannelPool
class is now provided by theni_measurementlink_service.grpc.channelpool
module. It is still aliased intoni_measurementlink_service.measurement.service
for compatibility with existing code. - The
ClientLogger
andServerLogger
interceptor classes are now provided by theni_measurementlink_service.grpc.loggers
module.GrpcChannelPool
automatically adds aClientLogger
andMeasurementService
automatically adds aServerLogger
, but these helper classes may be useful to clients in other situations.
- The
- Python 3.12 support (#427)
ni-measurementlink-service
is now tested with Python 3.12.- No code changes were required, so previous releases should work with Python 3.12 as well.
- Bug fixes
- Some cosmetic issues with example measurement UI panels have been fixed. (#420 #424 #435)
- Copying an example measurement into a separate Git repo no longer causes
ni-python-styleguide
to reorder itsimport
directives. (#374 #443) - ServerCallLogger no longer incorrectly logs OK when the call is canceled. (#370 #462)
- Fixed several APIs that leak internal types. (#375 #394 #396 #437)
- The
DiscoveryClient
class is now publicly available via theni_measurement_service.discovery
sub-package. - The
DiscoveryClient.register_measurement_service
method has been deprecated in favor of a more generalregister_service
API that supports other service types and registering multiple services. - In several public and internal classes, attributes and properties that should not be public have been deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
- Deprecated attributes, methods, and properties generate deprecation warnings, which are enabled by default for
pytest
tests but not for standalone Python scripts.
- The
- In the examples and generator templates,
start.bat
now assumes you are using an in-project virtualenv. (#416 #417) - The
DiscoveryClient
class now reads the MeasurementLink installation directories from the Windows registry instead of environment variables, eliminating the need to usepassenv
when testing with Tox. (#483 ) - DeprecationWarning raised due to Pathlib.Path (#514)
- Fix deserialization of large messages (>= ~30 fields) (#554)
- Example improvements
- The VISA examples now have a
visa_dmm
instrument driver rather than using VISA directly. (#439, #447) - The reservation timeout and instrument type ID parameters have been removed from the examples because the defaults are sufficient. (#393)
- Update example TestStand sequences to use the new
Update Pin Map
custom step (#538 #539 #540 #541 #547 #551 #550 #553)- MeasurementLink 2024Q1 introduces a new TestStand step,
Update Pin Map
, which sets the active pin map for the sequence execution. - The
teststand_pin_map.py
code module and related code in_helpers.py
have been deleted. - The example TestStand sequences now require MeasurementLink 2024 Q1 or later and will not work with older versions.
- Existing TestStand sequences should continue to work with MeasurementLink 2024 Q1 or later.
- MeasurementLink 2024Q1 introduces a new TestStand step,
- Add gRPC support to VISA examples (#525)
- Remove streaming-specific examples (#536)
- Remove
sample_streaming_measurement
andui_progress_updates
because the Game of Life example demonstrates this feature. - Add cancellation to the Game of Life example.
- Remove
- The VISA examples now have a
New Contributors
- @Avinash2Suresh made their first contribution in #439
- @renovate made their first contribution in #474
- @jayaseelan-james made their first contribution in #466
For More Details, see Version 1.3.0 Changes
Full Changelog: 1.2.0...1.3.0