System Definition API Feedback

[StephenB]

I just completed a project using this API in 2015 SP1 so I wanted to give some feedback on gaps I found. I worked around all of them by dropping into the system storage class, but it would be nice to stay at the high level official stuff.

1. Doing a save-as in the sysdef API doesn't update the base node "name" and the "name" property on the base node, so when you open it system explorer it has a dirty dot every time. There is also no API to set the base node name or base node "name" property
2. When renaming a bunch of channels under a section, I ran into issues using the 'rename' API call where it would not allow names that conflicted. In my case, I was systematically renaming AI0 through AI31 channels to AI31 to AI0 (reversing them). So they would collide while I did the work but by the time I would be done they wouldn't collide. A force rename would be nice for use cases like this
3. No copy paste in the API. For example when trying to make a new target that has all the same setup and children (daq cards, calcs, etc) as an existing target. There is also no constructor types that take in references of existing types, so you can't just construct a new one from an old one.
   
   • When dropping into the system storage API I can call 'DeepCopy' but then I can't cast this back up to a 'Target' or whatever in the system definition API, so I cant add it to the parent section. So I have to call AttachedChildNode in the system storage API
   • After cloning a target, the calculated channels under the new target still referred to things on the other target. For example a calc that was 1/(hp loop duration) was now referring to the other target's hp loop duration channel. This made sense because I cloned it, but its annoying. There is also no sysdef API to change the references for the variables used in the calcs

Thanks

[Guilherme_Correa]

Nice feedback in the SysDef API.

When I used this API osme years ago, I had to make some workarounds to get the functionality that I needed.

Why don't you post it in the Ideas Exchange for VeriStand? Those are really handy functions.