How to prevent .aliases file

[fpoeck]

Hi,

i am working on several VISA/RS232 based applications. Each project has an auto-.generated file with an .aliases extension.

This .aliases file usually includes some host-specific informations like local IP adress. Example:

[Mein Computer]
Mein Computer=192.168.1.123
[My Computer]
My Computer=localhost

 While those informations might make sense on my local development system - they make for sure no sense if they are auto-copied to other clients (which might be located in other networks/locations) - at least if those applications are not using some network-shared resources - which i am not using at all.

So my main-question is:

a) Is it possible to prevent those auto-generated .aliases files?

Side questions:

b) why is this file generated at all out of the box?

c) Is there some kind of detailed background information available regarding those .aliases files?

Background:

I dislike the idea of spreading useless (i guess it is useless in my app-cases) files with my installer. Those local-ip-adresses stored in the aliases file will most likely not do any real function if they aren't adopted to the local network structure & use-case of a software ... which is most likely pretty case-specific again.

Any help is appreciated 😉

[zenthoef · Accepted solution]

I don't understand why you include the .aliases file with your installer. I don't include that file, or any project file, when I build my installer and then it doesn't install files that do not need to be installed. 

Maybe that will help.

[Mark_Yedinak]

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@zenthoef wrote:

I don't understand why you include the .aliases file with your installer. I don't include that file, or any project file, when I build my installer and then it doesn't install files that do not need to be installed. 

Maybe that will help.

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Ditto this advice. Simply don't include the alias files in the installer. LabVIEW will automatically create it on the machine with the correct information. I also exclude these from source code control. The file is not useless since it is there to support VI server functionality, shared variables and the like. I suppose it would be nice if LabVIEW could truly detect if you were using any of the features that rely on this file but NI's philosphy has always been to install everything required to run any application (such as what libraries are installed with the runtime engine) then to allow the user to pick and chose that stuff. The thought is that if all the core stuff is there any LabVIEW application will work. If you pick and chose things may be left out that are required for other applications.

[fpoeck]

Hi & thanks for the reply.

I was "guessing" (my fault) the file was auto-added to the installer - and didn’t even try to just remove it.

Thanks once again for the quick replies.

Best Regards