@bombay88 wrote:
recently a vendor sent me a .lvappimg file to deploy on cRIO-9068 and cRIO-9081 . I was curious if there was any way to open this in lab view? I would like to open it up and view the .vi files and actually see the graphical code. Is there any way i can do this? I have the replication and deployment utility (first time using it). I was also not sure how this .lvappimg file is created in the first place. Is it created within the labview software or the project has to be downloaded to the cRIO then once its retrieved with the replication and deployment utility it just creates this .lvappimg file?
The lvappimage file is actually a compressed file (zip) that contains an image of the disk structure on the cRIO, any FPGA bitfiles that may be needed and then some metadata regarding versioning and configuration. The intent of the RAD is to improve the ability to backup a system in its entirety and then replicate to another system(s) - hence the RAD name. The best comparison I can make is the idea of an Installer but for cRIO specifically; however you are right in that the RAD tool is used to backup a live system and is not a build specification in the LabVIEW IDE. RAD itself is just a LabVIEW application that uses a set of well known APIs to perform this magic imaging process; the source code of RAD is available if you are interested.
From that perspective it therefore depends on how the LabVIEW application is designed as to whether there is an readable "code" or not but most of the time this is not the case. Most likely there is a LabVIEW built startup application and one or more FPGA bitfiles - neither of which are decompilable back to LabVIEW VIs.
