Why Use the LabVIEW VI Analyzer Toolkit?
PrintGood practices are critical when developing quality software programs. The LabVIEW VI Analyzer Toolkit provides LabVIEW developers with 58 different tests to optimize the style, performance, and documentation of their VIs.
Any LabVIEW developer can benefit from the VI Analyzer Toolkit, no matter what experience level or job title. Entry-level programmers can check their code while developing applications. Group managers can set tasks to run automatically every night to analyze VIs developed by their team.
The LabVIEW VI Analyzer Toolkit is extremely flexible. You can automate VI Analyzer tasks with the programmatic interface or run the tests manually on demand. View test results in the interactive results window immediately after analysis or review them later in an ASCII or HTML report.
The LabVIEW VI Analyzer Toolkit improves the overall quality of code in many ways, including the following areas.
Style
Inconsistent style causes problems when multiple developers work on the same project. The resulting VIs can be difficult to maintain and might confuse users. To avoid these problems, LabVIEW developers should establish and follow a set of style guidelines for VI development. The VI Analyzer Toolkit helps to enforce these guidelines by checking for consistency in style on the block diagram, front panel, and general areas such as the icons and connector panes. You can configure the settings of most tests to conform to a specific set of style guidelines.
Performance
You can optimize memory usage and execution time of LabVIEW VIs in many ways. Performance is particularly important when a program contains large arrays or critical timing problems. Use the VI Analyzer Toolkit to identify potential problems in your LabVIEW code and debug performance bottlenecks. The VI Analyzer tests check for programming practices that might decrease performance even if the code is not incorrect. VI Analyzer tests also can detect incorrect code in block diagrams that can be difficult for developers to find, such as wires that appear to be connecting VIs but are actually under the VIs, or objects hidden in loops.
Documentation
Thorough documentation is important to users and developers. To ensure the long-term usability of VIs, use the VI Analyzer Toolkit to check for consistent documentation within the VIs, such as VI and control descriptions and block diagram comments.
By helping developers build more robust applications and develop better coding practices, the LabVIEW VI Analyzer Toolkit is an essential tool for any LabVIEW developer to use. Refer to the LabVIEW Style Guide for more information about LabVIEW-specific software development guidelines. You also can find this content in the LabVIEW Help (linked below), 8.0 and later, by navigating to Fundamentals»Development Guidelines book.
Related Links:
LabVIEW Style Guide
LabVIEW 8.2 Help
LabVIEW 8.6 Help: VI Analyzer Test Descriptions (VI Analyzer Toolkit)
Reader Comments | Submit a comment »
I want a list of VI Analyzer Tests
I was looking for a detailed description of
each of the tests that can be configured in
VI Analyzer. This document did not help me
answer this question nor present a compelling
reason why I should use VI analyzer.
- Philip M. Kasprzyk, II-VI Incorporated. pkasprzyk@ii-vi.com - Mar 18, 2005
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