documentation on vi.llb

[hounddog]

I have NI Developer Suite 2008 and have noticed some LV 8.5 examples make reference to VIs in the ..\LabVIEW 8.5\vi.lib directory and to the Utilities subdirectory.  I found an example that used the Error to Warning.vi that I stumbled upon while examining many examples, but have yet to figure out if the only way to know what is in this library directory, vi.lib, is to make notes or if there is any documentation on these libraries.  Any feedback whatsoever on this topic would be well appreciated...

[altenbach]

In general, you should stick to what's in the palettes (plus maybe the openG libraries). That's just my opinion.

Many unexposed subVIs found in the system folders are for internal use. Since they are not documented, their functionality could change in the future, leading to problems. There is also a pile of legacy VIs that are kept for backwards compatibility when upgrading older code. It is possible that you are looking at an example that is very old.

New code should always use the current tools for good reasons.

I am not aware of any documentation of undocumented tools. 😄

[hounddog]

It is a library is it not? and libraries are made to make it convenient for reuse so I don't have to reinvent the wheel.  If one does not know what is in the library, then how does one know that the wheel has already been reinvented!  It would seem that there should be more information on what the library contains so that I can reuse the VIs in the library:  I don't care if the implementation changes as long as the interface remains unchanged.  I made mention of finding a pretty useful VI completely by accident in some example code contained in a book on LabVIEW, and that code used this VI.  I know I would not have done this, and instead, would have reinvented the same wheel.  If there was some documentation of the contents of this file I would be able to find the wheel without much ado.

[smercurio_fc]

Well, nobody is saying that more documentation wouldn't be beneficial.  However, as altenbach noted, there's lots of stuff in those directories that is basically "flotsam and jetsam". Can you use it? Of course. Are they libraries? That depends on your definition of "libraries". Many of the VIs are in llbs, which are "libraries" but they are that way mostly for historical reasons due to the 8.3 naming restrictions that used to exist. LLB files acted like ZIP files. Would your argument change if the VIs were there as individual VIs? Other stuff is in "lvlib" files, which are the LV 8.x new "libraries".

That said, there is some useful stuff in those folders, but unfortunately a lot of it is simply not documented, and it's not likely to be documented any time soon, if at all, for the reasons already given. 

[altenbach]

Yes, but there are some exceptions, for example the "recursive file list" was sitting buried since LabVIEW 7.0, but made it to the palettes in 8.2.

Arguably, that's a useful tool. 🙂

(See here)

Still, I would probably not go on a scavenger hunt deep in vi.lib. 😄 Usually there is a reason something is not exposed.