Migrating from GPIB32 API to 64-Bit NI4882 API

Starting with NI-488.2 for Linux, version 18.0, and NI-488.2 for macOS, version 19.5, NI-488.2 supports only the 64-bit NI4882 API.

Every effort has been made to have the NI4882 API closely match the GPIB32 API while incorporating API design best practices.

Modifying existing GPIB32 applications to use the 64-bit NI4882 API should require minimal changes. In most cases, changing the include file (ni4882.h instead of ni488.h) and the linked object file is sufficient to compile your application (for macOS, change ni488.framework to ni4882.framework).

There still may be warnings due to changes to the status variable type's signed property. The following list describes the major changes in the NI4882 API.

Complications may arise in several uncommon use cases. The following issues have been encountered:

In most cases, applications written in the NI4882 API continue to work on older versions of the NI-488.2 software. Certain new ibask and ibconfig options break this backwards compatibility, and those options are easily avoidable by using alternative options. To port an application to a 64-bit environment requires that the application migrate to the NI4882 API and be recompiled.

The following NI4882 API constructs break API compatibility with older versions of NI-488.2: