Following on from the LabVIEW Actor Framework Basics post, I wanted to continue the project showing how to use a Linked Network Actor. The Linked Network Actor (LNA) library uses network streams to communicate between Actors across a network connection. You can download the library and read all about the details over on the community page.
Either start at the beginning of the previous post, or just download the project here.
Once you have the project open, start by creating a new class, Remote Actor, and setting its inheritance to Actor.
Next you need to add the Linked Network Actor library to your project. If you used VIPM to install the library, you can find the lvlib in the following location. C:\Program Files (x86)\National Instruments\LabVIEW 2013\vi.lib\NI\Actors\Linked Network Actor
For your newly created Remote Actor, follow the steps in the previous post for overriding ‘Pre Launch Actor.vi’, ‘Actor Core.vi’ and ‘Stop Core.vi’. You will also need to create a launcher VI to start the Remote Actor. All these steps have been covered before and you will be left with four VIs that look as follows.
You will now have a normal Actor that can be run from the launcher and will stop cleanly when the front panel of the Actor Core is closed.
Adding the Linked Network Actor – Remote Actor
Create a global VI which is used to define the Remote Actor identity, Local Actor identity and the IP Address of the Remote Actor. I have used a global VI in this example to keep these settings in one place, but in a proper application, these values should be saved in some sort of config file and then added in using the constructors.
Now we need to create the Launch LNA VI and the Kill LNA VI. The Launch LNA VI will be run from the Remote Actor Core and the Kill LNA VI will be run from the Remote Stop Core.
In the Launch LNA VI, you need to launch an instance of ‘Linked Network Actor.lvclass’. However, before the Actor is launched, a few properties need set. Using the global VI from above, set the name to be RemoteActor, set a buffer size and a timeout. Once these properties are set, the Actor can be launched using the Remote Actor as the enquerer. Make sure to set the front panel to FALSE and wire the Remote LNA Enqueuer into the private data of Remote Actor. This enqueuer will be needed later when we want to send messages.
Next we need to create the Remote Kill LNA VI which wraps the Send Normal Stop VI and is called from the Remote Stop Core. This will stop the Remote LNA when the Remote Actor is stopped.
Local Actor
Once we have the Remote LNA running, we need a local LNA that is going to connect to it. Once this connection is made, messages can be sent between Actors across a network.
Again we need to create a Launch LNA and Kill LNA VI which will be launched by the Parent (local) Actor Core and stopped by the Parent (local) Stop Core respectively. Both VIs are similar to the Remote version, except for a few additions to the Launch LNA VI.
In the Parent Launch LNA VI, we need to specify connection URL which consists of the Remote Name and Remote IP Address. Once this URL has been constructed, we can run the ‘Send Connect.vi’ which is part of the LNA library.
The Parent Kill LNA VI also uses the Send Normal Stop VI and is run from the Parent Stop Core.
Sending a Message
Once you have the Remote LNA and Parent LNA set up, all you need to do is create a method to run and build a message using the Actor Framework Message Maker tool. Then when you want to send a message, unbundle the LNA enqueuer and wire the message into the ‘Send Transmit Network Message.vi’. This will execute the remote method referenced in the message Do.vi.
If you need to send data as part of the message, you will be able to add the data to the message using property nodes.
Messages can now be sent across a network with ease.
As usual the working project can be found below and if you have any comments or advice, please send me an email or alternatively leave a comment on Google+. When running the program, make sure you start Remote Actor first, and then Launch the Parent Actor. It must be done this way as the Parent connects to the Remote.