Chapter 4 Debugging Your Application
© National Instruments Corporation 4-3 NI-488.2 User Manual for Windows
Existing Applications
If the application does not have built-in error detection handling, you can
use NI Spy to determine which NI-488.2 call is failing.
To start NI Spy, refer to the NI Spy section earlier in this chapter.
After you have an NI Spy capture file, you can use NI Spy to search for
failed NI-488.2 calls by searching for calls with the ERR bit set. Once you
know which NI-488.2 call fails, refer to AppendixB, St atus Word
Conditions, and Appendix C, Error Codes and Solutions, for help
understanding why the NI-488.2 call failed. This information is also
available in the NI-488.2 online help. For instructions on accessing the
online help, refer to the Using the NI-488.2 Documentation section in
About This Manual.
NI-488.2 Error Codes
The error variable is meaningful only when the ERR bit in the status
variable, ibsta, is set. For a detailed description of each error and possible
solutions, refer to Appendix C, Error Codes and Solutions.
Configuration Errors
Several applications require customized configuration of the NI-488.2
driver. For example, you might want to terminate reads on a special
end-of-string character, or you might require secondary addressing. In
these cases, you can either reconfigure from your application using the
ibconfig function or reconfigure using the NI-488.2 Configuration
utility.
Note National Instruments recommends using ibconfig to modify the configuration.
If your application uses ibconfig, it works properly regardless of the
previous configuration. For more information about using ibconfig, refer
to the description of ibconfig in the NI-488.2 online help. For
instructions on accessing the online help, refer to the Using the NI-488.2
Documentation section in About This Manual.