22795-9 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.