All steps are the same except for a few differentiating factors. These factors make them step types. Here are the factors:
- Which adapter they use (you've identified that)
- Which sub properties they have (more on this below)
- Which sub steps they use (more on this below)
For the none adapter steps you've identified those properties are stored in step sub properties. You can see these by going to the property browser of the step settings and see which sub properties exist. Notice that with the wait step when you change the wait time the sub property TimeExpr changes. Ultimately steps are just containers of information (in TestStand speak they are called property objects). You can traverse property objects and look at sub properties, etc... So basically when you are editing step information you are just simply changing those subproperties which are then being used by the step's sub steps.
If you aren't familiar with sub steps just imagine that they are TestStand steps that execute within a step at different times depending on the step type and if they are pre, post or edit sub steps. So in the example of the wait step type the TimeExpr is being passed to a sub step that is just waiting for a period of time. It also monitors terminate and abort, etc...
All that being said here are several options for getting these to XML format:
- Continue doing what you are doing but you'll need something to handle each step individually or you will need a generic sub property recursion algorithm that can traverse property objects and flatten to xml.
- Use the getxml method (https://zone.ni.com/reference/en-XX/help/370052AA-01/tsapiref/reftopics/propertyobject_getxml_m/) and flatten the steps to XML and push them to your file
- Use the getxml method and flatten the file to xml and then extract what you want using xpath or some other xml traversing language
- Save the file to xml. Edit>>Sequence File Properties>>General tab and change the File Format to XML.
Hope this helps,
