Getting data from sensors

[graciano]

Hi
This is a curiosity that came up to my mind today.
Does anyone have experience in getting data from any kind of sensors?
Imagine i want a program that measures the temperature every 5 minutes ... some thing like that.
I need information about those equipments and wich could provide a easy approach to this subject.
Thanks

[kernel_panic]

The easiest way to approach this is to connect your Sensors to a common interface like USB or RS232.
You can use QextSerialPort or equal for RS232 communication and libusb for USB communication. If your sensor doesn't support one of these interfaces, you can use a microcontroller for reading the sensor and map it to one of these interfaces (for example use a NTC or PTC for temperature measurement).

The other method to read (builtin) sensors is the /proc directory within linux or some os calls within windows. You can also use drivers directly with ioctl or the /dev files. But this is very os related stuff.