LabVIEW

cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

"Edit > Find" coercion dots, Recommended terminals, empty Description, etc

Are there ways to use LV's automated Find capability to look for any of the following items?

 

Coercion dots
Connector terminals for which connection is "Recomended"
Controls or VIs for which the Description or Tip is blank
Wires that go behind objects
Wires that graphically are shown touching a terminal but that are not logically connected to it
Objects that logically are inside structures like loops and case statements but that graphically are out of view (beyond the graphical edge of the structure)
Dataflow running right to left on a wire
Variables that are written to in zero places or in more than one place
Controls and nodes whose only output terminal is unwired
Unwired Error Out terminals

I'd like to be able to search through a VI and everything inside its heirarchy for the above things - going through and noticing all their occurances could be good for a project. Some of these are pretty clearly programming errors. Some of them are bad practice, or at least the preference to avoid can be a useful strategy or check. Some of these things are perfectly legitimate to use frequently, but glancing at all the occurances of them gives an opportunity to notice otherwise hard to spot errors. AFAIK LabVIEW doesn't allow searching for them, though it would be able to recognize them.

 

For any of these, is there a way to Find them?

0 Kudos
Message 1 of 9
(3,482 Views)

I think that almost all of the items you listed are coverd by the VI Analyzer. It will find and list all of the offenses, let you browse to each case, and produce reports if you would like.

 

[Set PunMode = True] 

It can be customized in the event you think the "out-of-the-box" configuration warrents it being renamed "VI-ANALyzer".  Smiley Tongue

 [Set PunMode = Flase]

 

Ben

Retired Senior Automation Systems Architect with Data Science Automation LabVIEW Champion Knight of NI and Prepper LinkedIn Profile YouTube Channel
Message 2 of 9
(3,472 Views)
Gee, thanks, Ben! It looks like just what I wanted. I don't have the Development suite and am looking into what it takes to get the Analyzer. I did follow the link about buying it but don't understand what I read there...
0 Kudos
Message 3 of 9
(3,461 Views)
Only with scripting (search the forum, of LAVA). Even then, it will be a
huge task.

Since scripting isn't an real option, I guess the answer is no, there is no
way to do that.

Regards,

Wiebe.


0 Kudos
Message 4 of 9
(3,458 Views)
Hmm. I never dug into that fancy stuff. Perhaps time to start...

Regards,

Wiebe.


0 Kudos
Message 5 of 9
(3,439 Views)
And don't forget to look for output tunnels of for-loops that might have zero iterations.
0 Kudos
Message 6 of 9
(3,422 Views)

pcardinale wrote:
And don't forget to look for output tunnels of for-loops that might have zero iterations.

 

By that I guess you are refering to using a shift register to make sure you don't loose the value (eg File ref) passed to the loop. I can't speak for that test but it did locate a For loop that had an indexing output tunnel that was not being used by the following code.

 

Ben

Retired Senior Automation Systems Architect with Data Science Automation LabVIEW Champion Knight of NI and Prepper LinkedIn Profile YouTube Channel
Message 7 of 9
(3,419 Views)

>output tunnels of for-loops that might have zero iterations

 

Good one. How about controls for which every property like default, range, format etc has never been changed? I guess I mean it has the default default...

0 Kudos
Message 8 of 9
(3,418 Views)

Yes, that is tricky. Especially when working with references, it looks very
stupid to use a shift register. Not using a shift register can result in
very hard to find bugs. I usually try not to use output terminals for
references, since reference values hardly ever change. I simply wire the
reference from the input terminal to the nodes outside the loop. Against all
style guides, I even wire them behind the loops when I feel like it.

Regards,

Wiebe.


0 Kudos
Message 9 of 9
(3,396 Views)