large .tmp files

[KJSetter]

I'm running XP Embedded with LabView Embedded from a write protected flash drive. There is a 64 MB overlay in RAM that tmp files can be written to. The LabView application is creating a tmp file that grows to about 49 MB after which the application will not run anymore. The overlay size can be increased but I don't know how large this or any other tmp files can get to be so I'd rather find a more robust solution.  

- what is this tmp file, why is it created?

- can I control the size of the file?

- can I control the location the file is written to?

Thanks for any help that can be provided.

Kevin

[Jon_S.]

Hello KJSetter,

I have a couple of questions for you about your setup.  What module are you using (e.g. Microprocessor SDK, Mobile Module, LabVIEW Embedded for ARM Microcontrollers, LabVIEW Embedded for ADI Blackfin Processors)?  It sounds like you may be using a PDA that has XP Embedded on it.

What is the name of of the tmp file created?  Is it the same every time?

[KJSetter]

Sorry, lead you astray. It's not embedded LabView, just LabView 8.5 Run-Time Engine. The processor is an off the shelf Intel Dual Core mounted on a typical home PC mother board, 2 GB Ram. The OS is XP embedded.   

We are not using any NI modules, just the LabView software including the NI Vision component.

The name of the file is different each time. This time it was \Windows\temp\1C01DC.tmp, I've also seen 3725EB.tmp. 

In a text editor, it contained lots of binary and bits of legible text recognized as code labels, comments etc from our application.    

[Jon_S.]

We can change the directory of where the development environment stores temporary files, mentioned in this KnowledgeBase. I am going to see if we can change he path of the run time engine. Is the Run Time installed on your machine or did you put it on the flash drive?

I am almost positive that we are not going to be able to change the size of this file, but I will also look into this.

Message Edited by Jon S. on 07-14-2009 07:55 AM

[Jon_S.]

When we edit the settings in the development environment it is saved in the LabVIEW.ini file as an "ini token".  We can manually put these tokens in the application's ini file.

The token for temporary directory is tempdir=<path>

Message Edited by Jon S. on 07-14-2009 08:23 AM

[KJSetter]

Thanks Jon,

I tried this method but it doesn't work for me.

I discovered something new, the large tmp file is created when the application crashes. Crashes are caused by regular development bugs so are not unexpected and as one gets corrected there will always be another. There is a similar smaller file created at the same time as the large file, different name with a .dmp extension. I am thinking this large file is some sort of memory dump from the runtime application. After about one minute these two files get deleted (cleaned up by the RT eng?). However if a user restarts the application within that one minute, these files get left behind.

If this is a debugging or dumping behaviour of the RT, maybe we can turn that off?

[Jon_S.]

Hello KJ,

The .dmp file is a Windows Error Dump. This is not created by LabVIEW. I looked through all the settings again and I don't know if there is a way to eliminate this .tmp file. It very well could be created by the OS itself.