Store data in excel file in multiple columns

Question

Hi,
I am working on a data logger type of project. I have to store data received from serial port into excel file. I have attached images of data I am getting at serial port  ,image of  how I want to store data in excel worksheet and image of VI i tried.
please note that I know VI   I  built is incomplete. I have mentioned in image, In which part exactly I need help...
If anyone can suggest more efficient ways to do this that will be very helpful.
Attachments:
serial data.png ‏79 KB
SerialDataLog.png ‏31 KB
serialDataWithOutNames.png ‏64 KB

Answer 1

You are not writing to an Excel file -- you are writing a "spreadsheet", which is entirely different.
It is usually a good idea to write yourself some documentation, as it can help decide how to structure your program.  For example, do you collect all of the data, and then write it all at once?  That suggests three sub-VIs, "Acquire Data from VISA", "Extract Data from Serial String", and "Output Data to Excel".  The output from the first VI could be an array of Strings that look like "XCount: 123   Depth: 456  YCount: 789", the output from the second could be a 2D array whose columns are the XCount, Depth, and YCount values, and the third sub-VI would take this 2D array and use the Report Generation Toolkit to write a true Excel file (.xlsx) with headers XCount, Depth, and YCount and containing the values from the 2D array.  Each of these tasks is relatively simple to do "stand-alone", and it will be much easier to maintain/modify your top-level design if you only have 3 sub-VIs (with maybe some "bookkeeping functions" like getting file names) to worry about.
On the other hand, if you need to acquire/parse/output a point at a time, this can still be done, but now you have to mix everything together.  Still, conceptualizing it as three sequential tasks (and maybe making three sub-VIs that do "one piece" of each task) might help you develop your algorithm.
Bob Schor