Format Into String By Name

[Amir_Y]

Current "Format Into String" code may look like:

                            

This can be very confusing.

Suggested "Format Into String By Name" Code may look like:

                      

In order to define the input names, a new filed called "Inputs Name" can be added to the "Edit Format String" dialog (available in the right click menu).

Amir.

[tst]

I'm voting for this because I agree that there's a problem here which needs to be solved (how to easily match the format string and the terminals on the node), but I'm not sure that this solves the problem properly.

Some issues with it:

• This would make the format string more complicated.
• This idea can only work on constant format strings (today the input types are only determined by the string if it's constant. Otherwise, they are determined by the wires and a run-time error is generated if there is a mismatch).
• It takes up more BD space.

Also see this related idea - http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW-Idea-Exchange/An-altermative-to-the-quot-Format-into-string-quot-too...

[Amir_Y]

Hi TST, You are right in your points. It will be more complicated, not dynamic, and will take more BD space. Lets compare it to "Bundle By Name": 1. It's more complicated than "Bundle", we must connect "input cluster". 2. It's not dynamic - actually, almost nothing is dynamic with clusters... 3. It takes much more BD space than "Bundle". Despite these disadvantages, we use "Bundle By Name" a lot. Amir.

[Ironman99]

Kudos.

I can see all the potential issues listed by tst, but your idea can be seen as a better version of this, to which it seems very close:

Your solution will probably use less space, and will have a full power of a "true" format string.

However, as a so similar solution already exists, I'm not too confident that NI will implement your "variant".

Cheers

[AristosQueue (NI)]

Workaround: If you don't like the Express VI that Ironman99 mentions, you can also create a subVI around your node and name the terminals.

Speaking as a LV developer:

The idea seems feasible. With enough kudos, we could do this.

Speaking as a LV user *not* as a LV developer:

I am not going to kudos this idea myself because I don't believe it would have much utility. The pictures shown in the idea show just the node by itself, but that's misleading. The vast majority of the time, the format string is visible right above the Format Into String node, so you can just see the place where each input will be used. Taking the extra time to name each input would, I believe, be rarely done. And there are two existing ways (the Express VI and the subVI wrapper) to provide naming to the terminals if that is highly desired.

[mavimi]

Maybe the "Variable Order Specifier" could be used for naming the input terminals.

If there's letters before the dollar sign, instead of a number, this could be interpreted as an input name - and the node automatically changes to display names, instead of types.