Hello Nic,
Thank you for the feedback! Let me address the issues you presented:
What multiple function definition behavior do you use in The MathWorks, Inc. MATLAB® software that you find lacking in LabVIEW MathScript? LabVIEW MathScript is generally compatible with scripts written in the MATLAB language syntax. One way to reduce the number of .m files you have for your user-defined functions is to write your functions in one file. One caveat to this approach is that the .m file must have the same name as the first function defined in the file. Also, any additional functions can only be called from within that file (that is, only the first function has global scope). Unfortunately, it is not possible to define functions in the MathScript node at this time, but it is something we are considering. There are other issues that come up when thinking about this. Would you like the functions you define in a node to be available only to that node or to all other MathScript nodes on the diagram? Or in that application instance? Perhaps a way to select which nodes can access those functions? Or a way to provide access to those functions to the MathScript Window, too?
The search path difficulty you speak of is present in other software as well. If you move code to a different machine, you will first need to set the search path (perhaps with just a 'cd' command) before that software can find your code, too. Searching the current directory to find .m files is a fundamental difference from the behavior of LabVIEW MathScript. A problem with searching the same directory as the VI is that there is no directory until the VI is saved and you can certainly run a VI without saving it. However, if you perform the same operations as you did in other software before running your code, you will find that MathScript works as well. You can call the 'cd' function (note that you must enclose the path in single quotes, though) at the beginning of your node and then that directory will be searched. However, using the 'cd' function results in reduced run-time performance of the MathScript node.
In LabVIEW, you can also drop a primitive to get the current VI's path. You can strip the VI's name from the path and wire the path to the MathScript node. You can then call the 'path' or 'addpath' command in MathScript to change the path. These functions also have run-time performance implications in MathScript. Due to the performance issues present with 'cd,' 'path,' and 'addpath,' we have implemented a more efficient way to set the search path. It is as you discovered: go to Tools >> Options >> MathScript: Search Paths. As you note, this will only affect the path of MathScript nodes in the main application instance. If you wish to change the path for a LabVIEW project you've created, right-click on the "My Computer" target, choose Properties and then "MathScript: Search Paths." If you wish to change the path for the MathScript Window, go to File >> LabVIEW MathScript Preferences >> MathScript: Search Paths. Note that when you set a path in the main application instance, the locations of any .m files found in that path are saved when the VI is good. If you transfer the VI to another machine with the .m files in the same relative location to the VI, they will still be found and you don't need to worry about setting the path on that machine.
You are absolutely correct about the indentation. The text editing features are rather limited in LabVIEW and we are aware of it. However, improving it gets prioritized below other features. You can always use spaces to indent your lines.
Using the 'end' keyword to denote the end of a function definition is not required in MathScript. If an error is thrown with the keyword present, this is most likely a bug. I will file a bug report to investigate it. For now, you can simply remove the end keyword from the bottom of each function definition.
Is it possible to have your "main" code in the same file as your function definitions in other languages? I have not seen this mixture, but if you are mentioning it as a suggestion for improvement, it is best to use the product suggestion link that altenbach provided. I can see how it would provide easier access to your code, but it would also be more limiting in terms of code reuse.
I appreciate your time in providing feedback. I believe you can use the search path in MathScript in the same way that you are used to in other software, but setting the search path through the options dialog will result in better performance. Filing a product suggestion will provide us with a formal mechanism for tracking suggestions. If you can, please provide as much information as possible as to how you'd like functions defined in nodes to behave (note the questions I posed earlier). If you have other comments, please feel free to let us know.
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Grant M.
Staff Software Engineer | LabVIEW Math & Signal Processing | National Instruments
