DQMH with PPLs Demo

LabVIEW Solution Builder

Repo: https://github.com/jovianarts/LVSolutionBuilder/tree/main

Presentations:

• UKTAG#6 - LabVIEW Solution Builder Tool by NI to Cascade LabVIEW builds & PPLs By Phil Joffrain
• LabVIEW Solution Builder Taking PPLs from a Dream to Reality | Joshua Jenkins | GDevCOnNA 2022

Features

• Evaluates dependencies between build specifications for PPLs to determine the correct build order, errors if there are circular dependencies (-> Tester VIs)
• Different inputs possible
  • single lvproj file
  • folder with source code and lvproj files
  • a ".sln" solution file listing projects to build and any pre-existing PPLs
• creates an ".incrb" file where meta data for incremental builds are stored.

Usage

1. Clone the repo
2. Open "SolutionBuilder.vi"
3. Select lvproj file and run the vi

DQMH CML with PPL - DQMH example project

Steps taken to allow project to be built with PPLs:

1. Add PPL build spec for each lvlib
   • Activate "Exclude depended packed project libraries"
   • Build folder is the EXE root.
2. Build executable and PPLs with the solution builder

HSE CML with PPL - HSE Application Template project

Steps taken to allow project to be built with PPLs:

1. remove "Modules" folder from EXE build spec
2. Create PPL build specs to the correct folder -> same path in exe root as relative to _Source
3. Modify dynamic VI calls to use the correct paths to call the dependent PPL and append ".lvlibp" if the "App.Kind" property is "Run-Time System"
   1. When reading config use App Directory from "HSE - Get Application Paths"
   2. When loading the startup module into the ui use App Directory from "HSE - Get Application Paths"
4. Use LV Solution Builder to build dependent libraries into PPLs as well as the exe.

Results

• DQMH itself does not need to be packed into PPL -> adds very small overhead to each module
• HSE Framework modules need to be built into PPls
• LV Solution Builder seems to work quite well, need to test it with bigger projects. No feedback on circular dependencies is shown