You are here: NI Home > Support > Product Reference > Manuals > LabVIEW 8.5 Help

Use binary measurement files (.tdms) to exchange data between NI software, such as LabVIEW and DIAdem. The .tdms file stores waveform properties and is a binary file that contains waveform data. Binary .tdms files provide higher accuracy for floating-point numbers, have a smaller disk footprint, and perform faster than text-based measurement files (.lvm).

You can use the TDM Streaming Functions to open, create, or configure .tdms files. You can use the Read From Measurement File Express VI and the Write To Measurement File Express VI to read data from and write data to .tdms files. You also can use the MathScript save function and the load function to save variables to and load variables from .tdms files.

Note  LabVIEW still supports the .tdm binary file format. The .tdm file format uses an XML-based format to store waveform properties and links to a binary file that contains waveform data. You can use the Read From Measurement File Express VI and the Write To Measurement File Express VI to read data from and write data to .tdm files. You also can use the Storage VIs to read from and write to .tdm files.