CLA Tags - will adding a '#' in front of the tag screw up Requirements Gateway tracking?

[Stuart.Parkinson]

I find it useful in the practice exams to add a '#' in front of the tag comment - eg. #[Covers: UI1]

This adds the comment to the bookmarks list so I can easily see and jump to my tags later.

Will adding the # upset the marking? Technically the comment sitll fulfills the requirement as stated in the instructions, but I would hate to flunk out just because RG failed to recognise them! Anyone got any experience of RG or of marking the CLA?

[Hooovahh]

I have used RG, but I think only NI can answer this, because it really depends on how they find the covers tag.  If they wrote it to find a comment, or description that starts with [Covers then it won't find it, if they wrote a proper regular expression then it would find it anywhere.

Now that I think about it you can put more than one covers tag in a single comment so they must have the regular expression written in a way that it would find it, which makes me think it would still find it if you started with a #.

If this does work it is a good tip.

[Fisel]

I tested this on RG using the settings with which we grade the CLAs, and it works fine.  You can add the #.  Just make sure you do it OUTSIDE the square brackets.  

Thank you for this tip.  

[Stuart.Parkinson]

Thanks Fisel, good to know for sure 🙂

[T.Hamberger]

Coincidentally, I now prepare a presentation (Germany) touching this special topic.

If you use Covers-Stements only in comments of block diagram, the thing with the # works.

(the # must be before the brackets AND the # must be either at the begin of a comment or preceeded by a space or newline

-> if you would write "#[Covers: A]#[Covers: B]", bookmark manager wouldnt find the second)

Generally, your trick is only useful, when you restrict using your covers-statements only in areas, where they are also

acessible by the bookmark manager.

But in the CLA exam, I find it also useful to make a documentation of front panel elements or fill the documentation

section of a vi and use covers-tags also there -> these wouldn't be found by the bookmark manager.

If you still have enough preparation time, why not install an evaluation version of NIRG and try yourself what is possible?

[Stuart.Parkinson]

Thanks for the extra info, T. I actually sat the exam 2 weeks ago - just waiting on the results now 😕

I used this trick in the exam, but in the end I was so pressed for time that I couldn't make good use of it - ie. I did't have the time to go back over the requirements and check them which is where this would be useful. However, I think using bookmarks like this will be of more use in future projects that have formal requirements specs and will speed up code reviews, validation, etc.

[T.Hamberger]

So, I wish you success.

Having some useful tricks or tools for the exam is one good strategy,

but another good strategy is, when this special trick does not work 100% in the exam (due to nervousness etc.),

that you keep in your mind the actual task to be done (to be prepared to pass even without these "useful helpers")

-> when I prepared for CLA two years ago, I tried to use RequirementsGateway as preparation (for checking my sample soulutions)

but as I did something wrong [I didnt know what? - something with spelling?] NIRG didnt analyse my VIs correctly.

So I decided, not to spend too much time on NIRG during preparation but instead "simply" train to develop solution architectures efficiently,

hoping that the covers-tags set in exam will be ok...