The labview forums have been such a great resource, especially for someone that is not an expert level programmer like myself, that I thought it was just about time, that I tried to give something back to the community of people that have been so helpful. I just recently solved a problem that I would think effects lots of other industries, and that possibly many people have been in a similar situation.
We have a fully built labview program that tests a box that we have here. It is an actuator for the aerospace industry. But it could just as well be any other sort of electronic box. The labview code has been evolved for a number of years now, by many different developers, and is in a word AWFUL. It is just about the the most complicated and convoluted code I have ever seen. What makes it even worse, is that there is no documentation whatsoever. Imagine trying to fix the engine of a car, with no instructions as to how any of the parts are supposed to work, and you get the idea.
The time has come in our developement process, that we want to start doing some automation. The main .vi has buttons and indicators that a technician will enter information into, send it to the box, and then wait for a response (part of a testing procedure). The code is not modular at all, and it would take a VERY long time, to attempt to re-write the code as it should have been written, in a more modular fashion. So what to do?
So I came up with a concept that I am calling "automatic button pushing". So basically what I did, was perform an Asynchronous VI call, to the VI in question, and then use various references and property nodes back to that VI, to push the buttons, and then look at the responses, as though I were a technician doing it manually. Clearly, this is not the most ideal solution. The proper way to do this, is to re-do the software so that things are more modular, and then probably use something like teststand to set up the testing for it. All of those things will happen in the future, but they needed something quick that can bridge the gap, and they did not want to touch any of the original code, as that would require re-certification etc. So what I proceded to do was to create a series of sub-vi's that touch all of the various buttons, and read the indicators that I need. Then string them together in a top level .vi to create a fully automated test. Enclosed is the subVI that I used to do the Asynchronous VI call, and an example of one of the controls that I am "pushing".
I am thinking this sort of thing might be very useful for others. Hope this is helpful..... 🙂
