LabVIEW Idea Exchange

To further expand generic programming, we should be able to specify custom patterns as a custom structure. For example, if you very often write "retry once" code you could write retry2x.

I think if you expand this concept you can accomplish other requests on this board like case structures that respond to error wires with warnings on them. If you expand it farther you could have "express" structures that have a configuration interface.

Hi, I am a beginner in Labview and often when I read Labview code I wonder how one can determine if the code makes sense.

Is there a mathematical description of the Labview Language? Vi's need to be connected in certain order to do something meaningful (semantics), but there is also a syntax-rules, which for instance  are that you must create a virtual channel before you write to the virtual channel, you must obtain a queue before you enqueue an element.(I don't know if this will result in a broken wire actually)

What is a Labview program? Can I validate if the above program is correct? If it makes sense? What it does by "mechanically" applying rules from a description of the language? Or is it only by testing and gathering experience of previous behavior that I can validate a code?

What can a Labview program consist of? You can also have files that are of .vi, .lvclass, .ctl, .lvlib. I understand that a vi is a virtual instrument, a graphical code entity, and a lvlib must then be a collection of vi's located on a computer. What is a .ctl file and a .lvclass file?

I've also noted that many entities in a labview program have propertynodes. These seams to be very little documented. Just trial and error here I suppose.

Then a question from a colleague: Is Labview fly-safe? That is, can one prove that a certain Labview code behaves a particular way and doesn't crash an aeroplane which have a computer that runs the Labview-software. An instrument that is used to test certain functions on an aeroplane on the ground must also be fly-safe. His question has the same roots as mine I suppose..-How do I understand a Labview-program, can it be done using rules, or is it just by experiencing the behaviour of the software.

I think you're in a dilemma here... If you write down a mathematical description of Labview, there will be non-NI Labview compilers out there the next month, if you do not do some computer science theory on the Labview language, no computer science deparment will pick it up and do reasearch on it, and that means still no university courses in Labview. Maybe you should wait until you reach a critical "mass".

Kindest regards,

Lasse