This document describes how to
interface with the spinapi control library, which is used to
control all of our products. The spinapi control library is a
standard windows .dll which can be accessed from a wide variety
of programming environments, such as C/C++ programs, etc.
Accessing spinapi from a C/C++ program
This section describes the basic steps
needed to get your C/C++ program to work with spinapi.
Virtually any C/C++ compiler/programming environment is
compatible, feel free to use your favorite. If you do not
currently have a C/C++ compiler, there are several high quality
compilers available for free download on the internet, see below
for some recommendations.
Four files are necessary to be able to control your
board using this approach.
.c/.cpp file: This is the
program itself. Several example C programs are included for each
of our different products.
spinapi.h: The spinapi
header file. This contains the function declarations and
definitions which are needed to access the spinapi functions.
This should be #included in all files which use the spinapi
functions. (#include "spinapi.h")
Import library: This
library must be linked with your program so it will know to look
inside the spinapi.dll file to find the API functions. There are
several different file formats for import libraries, so we have
provided three different ones so that all compilers can be
supported. Choose whichever is appropriate for the compiler you
are using.
libspinapi.a:
GCC based compilers (such as MinGW)
General Tips
We highly recommend you check
the result of the pb_get_version() function at the
beginning of each program. This way, if you upgrade to a newer
version of spinapi, you can check to make sure your program is
not accidentally still using the older version of the library.
Checking the return value of
all spinapi functions is highly recommended. This way you will
be able to detect common errors (such as entering too short a
time for an instruction length, etc.)
If you encounter difficulties controlling your board with
spinapi, you can enable debugging features by calling
pb_set_debug(1) on the first line of your program. This
will create file called log.txt when you run your program, which
can then be emailed to us along with a description of the
problem to help us solve your problem as quickly as possible.
Contact Info
SpinCore Technologies, Inc.
4623 NW 53rd Avenue, SUITE 5 Gainesville, FL 32653
USA
Phone: (USA)
352-271-7383 Fax: (USA)
352-371-8679 Internet: http://www.spincore.com
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