Importance

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Abstract

A system and method for viewing live data, such as measurement data from an instrumentation system, using a standard user agent or client, such as a web browser. A uniform resource locator (URL) identifying a data source is provided to the user agent. The URL includes a protocol scheme identifying the protocol to use for connecting to the data source. A protocol plug-in may be installed to enable the user agent to display a default view of a live data source. The protocol plug-in may handle the URL by returning standard HTML code to the user agent, wherein the HTML code refers to a data viewer component. The data viewer component may then connect to the data source identified by the URL and receive and display data. In one embodiment, the plug-in or the data viewer may configure the data source to begin generating the live data. The data source may be idle until the plug-in or the data viewer connects to the data source and optionally configures the data source to start providing data. Upon receiving the data, the data viewer component may display the data in the user agent in various ways, depending on the type of data received. The invention thus enables a user to connect to a wide variety of data sources using standard software, such as web browsers, and see a graphical representation of the data without having to write any program code. The user can connect to a data source and view live data, e.g., data that is generated 'live' and which was not previously stored in a memory. Advantageously, users may connect to a data source and view live data from the data source in a manner similar to connecting to a traditional web HTTP server and viewing a web page, but without interacting with an HTTP server at any point.

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First Claim