LabVIEW and source control: graphical differencing

[HJPhilippi]

Hi there,

being an enervated Microsoft SourceSafe user, I'm testing Seapine Surround SCM right now. As far as I can see it's a flexible + powerfull client/server source control suite and -best of all- they're offering free licenses for those willing to give it a try: http://www.seapine.com/scmswitch.php
(no advertising, I'm not related to Seapine in any way).

Setting up Surround SCM as source control provider within LabVIEW was easy; checking files out/in, basic versioning and history reviews etc. work fine. There's only one thing I couldn't achieve so far: As described and shown in http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/4633#toc5 one can use graphical differencing with LabVIEW. But how to set up this in the SCC tool?

Surround SCM lets you specify diff and merge tools for any file type/ending as needed (see attached screenshot). If you select the related editor's exe, the command line instruction hands over both file paths of the items to compare. Well, but this simply opens both VIs in LabVIEW, no visual differencing will take place in any way...
Is there another command line switch or option that I have to set to let LV do the differencing I'm looking for? Any ideas?!?

Thanks for your help,
Greetings

Hans

[gmart]

You can perform the difference directly from LabVIEW by selecting Tools>>Source Control>>Show Differences. LabVIEW will handle the calls to the source control provider and show you the differences in LabVIEW.

If you want to perform comparisons in the source control provider, there is a tool called LVDiff (http://meta-diff.sourceforge.net/index.html) that you can use. I believe you can configure your provider to use it for the ".vi" extension.

[HJPhilippi]

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@gmart wrote:
You can perform the difference directly from LabVIEW by selecting Tools>>Source Control>>Show Differences. LabVIEW will handle the calls to the source control provider and show you the differences in LabVIEW.

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Yes I know, but having LabVIEW.exe set up as "Diff-Tool" this would simply open both VIs without highlighted differences.

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If you want to perform comparisons in the source control provider, there is a tool called LVDiff (http://meta-diff.sourceforge.net/index.html) that you can use. I believe you can configure your provider to use it for the ".vi" extension.

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Now, that's the thing I was looking for. Absolutely great!
Setting up LVDiff as described above does actually open both VIs side-by-side and points me to the changes, on the front panel and within the diagram code. And it doesn't matter if I start the comparison from Surround SCM or in LabVIEW using the mentioned menu function, since it both ends up in the same comparison functionalty.

Buddy, you saved my day!

Greetings + a thousand thanks,
Hans

[MtnBiker]

I might be a little late to help, and don't know how wedded you are to Surround, but it's worth mentioning the ionForge Evolution SCM works with Labview and has built in visual diffing.  Might be a good alternative for?  They've got a free license for one person and a eval version you can try out http://www.ionforge.com/downloads

[Anonymous]

I might be a little late to help, and don't know how wedded you are to
Surround, but it's worth mentioning the ionForge Evolution SCM works
with Labview and has built in visual diffing. Might be a good
solution for you? They've got a free version for one person and a 30
day eval you can check out <a href="http://www.ionforge.com/downloads"
target="_blank">http://www.ionforge.com/downloads</a>

[GerTheDwarf]

Suppose I create an executable from a project. Then some weeks later, I create the executable again using the same build specification in the project. What will a binary diff of the two executables show? What will I see if before the second build, I recompile the project, without having modified the code in any other way?

EDIT: Oops, meant to put this in its own thread...

Message Edited by GerTheDwarf on 10-03-2007 05:26 PM

[rolfk]

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@GerTheDwarf wrote:

Suppose I create an executable from a project. Then some weeks later, I create the executable again using the same build specification in the project. What will a binary diff of the two executables show? What will I see if before the second build, I recompile the project, without having modified the code in any other way?

EDIT: Oops, meant to put this in its own thread...

Message Edited by GerTheDwarf on 10-03-2007 05:26 PM

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In the first case you should see no difference as far as I'm aware off. In the second case this gets a bit more complicated. Theoretically you should not see a difference either but that assumes that absolutely nothing changed in the LabVIEW installation (update, bugfix, etc), any of your VIs nor in any of the VI libraries your application uses (typically you don't create all the VIs yourself but make use of preexisting functions and working on a different project may have caused subtly recompile/relinking changes to those VIs).

And creating a new topic would have been definitely the way to go!!

Rolf Kalbermatter

Message Edited by rolfk on 10-04-2007 08:38 AM

[Andreas_Fuerst]

Hello,

for graphical Compare look here:

http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW/Can-I-use-Subversion-with-Labview8/m-p/1215101#M519466