Command Line Tools for Continuous Integration

[DarkLordOfG]

Did you ever get CI/CD working with LabVIEW and GIT?

We are trying to use LabVIEW with github.

[t.kendall]

Look at how MGI is doing it on GitLab. We have been using the Solution Explorer to help our build process, it has more options from a CLI that the built in options.  The CLI is not documented that much but once you get the syntax it is easy to use.  I have a doc on it, but my VM server is currently down (shakes fist at IT) and I can't get access to it. 

[joerg.hampel]

Shameless plug: http://rat.hampel-soft.com

[James_McN]

There are several based on G CLI - check out https://github.com/JamesMc86/G-CLI/wiki/Tools-That-Work-with-G-CLI

The toolchain is maturing quickly now and I think it should only get easier going forward

[kdevelle]

Hello
Does one of you ever try to use LabVIEW CLI for compile bitfile? I manage to make it work for build spec under "My Computer" or RT target but with FPGA I get the following message :

Error Code : 1370
Error Message : mxLvErrorHandler.vi:2660001
An error occurred while running the ExecuteBuildSpec operation.

Regards

Kevin

[James_McN]

Yeah the normal build call doesn't work as you say. There is a separate function to call which means the tools need to adapt

I tried it once and from memory it only started the compile, I don't think it reported a final result (which is problematic for CI) - although I don't remember for sure

[kdevelle]

Thanks for your answer. Do you have the name of the separate function?

[James_McN]

Yeah - you have to go find it in vi.lib though - its documented at https://knowledge.ni.com/KnowledgeArticleDetails?id=kA00Z0000015AFoSAM&l=en-GB

[joerg.hampel]

Our Release Automation Tools use a bunch of VIs from the vi.lib. For FPGA compilation, these are the ones:

1.) \vi.lib\rvi\CDR\niFpgaBuild_GenerateCode.vi

2.) \vi.lib\rvi\CDR\niFpgaBuild_Compile.vi

As we don't use the LabVIEW CLI but the G-CLI, our tools just wrap those VIs.

We keep running into lots of problems with popups, for example when the code is not executable. Even though there's an input called "display status dialogs", that one only shows or hides the progress window, not any error messages. So if anything out of the ordinary happens, at the moment, we wait for the whole process to time out and for LabVIEW to be killed. 

Also, the compilation status window will always open, but as it's neither modal nor blocking, that doesn't bother me much.

[kdevelle]

Thanks a lot for your answers, I will have a look with that