User`s guide

7 Working with Target PC Files and File Systems
7-2
Introduction
The xPC Target scope object of type file always writes acquired signal data to
a file on the target PC. You cannot direct the scope to write the data to a file on
the xPC Target host PC. Once xPC Target has written the signal data file to
the target PC, you can access the contents of the file for plotting or other
inspection from the host PC. xPC Target can write data files to
• The C:\ or D:\ drive of the target PC. This must be an Integrated Device
Electronics (IDE) drive, configured as a primary master. xPC Target
supports file systems of type FAT-12, FAT-16, or FAT-32.
• A 3.5 inch disk drive.
The largest single file that you can create is 4 GB.
Note that writing data files to 3.5 inch disk drives is considerably slower than
writing to hard drives.
You can access signal data files, or any target PC system file, in one of the
following ways:
• If you are running the target PC as a stand-alone system, you can access that
file by rebooting the target PC under an operating system such as DOS and
accessing the file through the operating system utilities.
• If you are running the target PC in conjunction with a host PC, you can
access the target PC file from the host PC by representing that file as an
xpctarget.ftp object. Through the MATLAB interface, use xpctarget.ftp
methods on that FTP object. The
xpctarget.ftp object methods are file
transfer operations such as
get and put.
• If you are running the target PC in conjunction with a host PC, you can
access the target PC file from the host PC by representing the target PC file
system as an
xpctarget.fs object. Through the MATLAB interface, use the
xpctarget.fs methods on the file system and perform file system-like
methods such as
fopen and fread on the signal data file. These methods
work like the MATLAB file I/O methods. The
xpctarget.fs methods also
include file system utilities that allow you to collect target PC file system
information for the disk and disk buffers.