Are there any tools to provide hirarchical infos on TS Seqs?

[LuI]

Hi all,

I have a rather large TS project within 3 different sequence files. Involves about 130 sequences and about 200 support VIs as well as some support DLLs.
Recently I had to change the function prototype and the hirarchy of some of the DLLs. This was quite easy to expand and 'repair' in the VI hirarchy, but I am still stuck in the corrections needed at TS level. I am missing a tool that shows the calling hirarchie within my TS project.
With such a tool I could directly spot what changes in a particular sequence would create potential problems in its callers. It was even better when TS would have a kind of 'autoupdate' when renaming a sequence like it exists in LabVIEW.

In my case I got some communicati
on DLLs that based on USB. Consequently they are called USB-commxxx.dll. Its LV-callers are called USB-Commxxx.VI and its callinfg sequences are called USB-commxxx. Later we got another set of DLLs using serial communication and a naming convention of S-commxxx. There is a kind of wrapper DLL that handles some special 'bootloader' mode communication end users of our SW are not allowed to use. This DLL is named and called like BL-commXXX and has to use a different prototype, but will finally call the DLLs USB-comm and s-comm.
So I had renamed my LV-interface VIs and the complete hirarchy was updated. I also renamed my sequences, but the sequence hirarchy was not updated. Got lots of error messages. Had to copy them to a temporary table in order to have it visibel while repairing 'em.

Any hints on how to make this easier and more stringent.
Any strategic hints on how to devellop large projects? Buying external expertise can't always be a good solution as they need to get involved d
uring devellopment of the potential UUTs.

Any hints are welcome!
Greetings from Germany!
--
Uwe Frenz

[Kyle_Gupton]

Hi Uwe -

Though I don't have any specific suggestions for you, I'm very interested in this topic. A hierarchy view is something that we are considering adding to TestStand in the future. If we were to add such a thing, what capabilities would you like to see?

I encourage everyone else to provide your thoughts on this subject as well.

Thanks,

Kyle Gupton
National Instruments

[RayFarmer]

Hi,

I dont know if you are using custom step types for this project.

But as a future reference. It would be easier to make an update to your step by modifying the step types and then allowing the sequencefile to pull in the step type when it is loaded.
The only point you will need to keep in mind is :-
The code module can not be placed in the Specify Module. You will have to use a Post Step.
The reason is that if the code module is placed in the Specify Module location, then when your custom step is used in the sequence and you want to modify it by modify the Step Type. When make every instance of the step type take on the changes, then every preporty except the code module will be changed. Hope this make sense.

Regards
Ray Farmer

[LuI]

Kyle,

take a look at the hierarchical view in LabVIEW and implement as many of its features as possibel.

The best thing, if possibel, was a kind of 'Project hIrarchy eXplorer' (PIX 😉 ).
In my recent project there's a LabVIEW-driven Operator Interface, a hierarchy of three sequence files ('myParallelmodel' as base lib, 'UUT_Tools' as test lib and 'VG_Tests' as device-specific test sequence) and lots of helper VIs, device drivers etc. Also IVI- (DMMs, Switches) and other devices and their drivers.

I'd love to see all those modules down to (top of) driver level. Maybe the TS engine just as one central module, but included. Might result in tree-like view with branched roots and a trunk (TS engine) and a branched crown.

I have thought of preparing such a t
ool by myself, but this seems an incredible amount of work I cannot take into consideration at the moment. But it should not be impossibel to 'traverse' down those sequence files and build a list of steps together with their callers and calees. Coming down to all the proxy_callers for called LabVIEW VIs I would have to stop because of no open API to the LabVIEW hierarchical window (AFAIK). But YOU could probably access it and generate a coupled hierarchy.

Hope this is clear enough.
Don't hesitate to ask more specific Q's, even by private mail (u dot frenz at getemed dot de)

Greetings from Germany!
--
Uwe Frenz

[LuI]

Ray,

are there any examples?

Greetings from Germany!
--
Uwe Frenz