4.3 FAQ-361 What is the difference between LabTalk and Origin C?

Last Update: 2/4/2015

LabTalk, Origin's original programming language, is a scripting language and, as such, is well suited for linking together many of the graphing and analysis operations that you might perform as standalone actions (e.g. FFT, graphing, graphic export, etc.) through the Origin user interface. LabTalk provides access to many internal Origin objects, such as graphs, worksheets, data plots and their properties, menus, etc.


Origin C, Origin's other programming language, is a compiled language and is better suited for computationally intensive operations. It supports a nearly complete ANSI C language syntax as well as a subset of C++ features (including built-in, user-defined, and DLL-extended classes) and a few C# features (including Collections and the using and foreach commands). Like LabTalk, it provides access to many internal Origin objects. For example, objects such as worksheets and graphs are mapped to classes in Origin C.


Functions written in Origin C, including X-Functions (Introduction to X-Functions tutorial), can be called from LabTalk and can execute LabTalk.


Read more on Introduction to Programming in Origin from the OriginLab website.



Keywords:script, ANSI, object, oriented, C++