Avoid auto-generated CHM files in your build - Please add to next version roadmap

[DRSherwin]

I have an exe build where the source includes some DAQmx functions.  Apparently this causes LabVIEW to autogenerate some CHM help files for these native functions when I build my exe.  I do not want these files included for multiple reasons.  My ask for the next release is to provide the default to not include the offline CHM files, and to allow us a method to include them if desired.  Native functions should not, in my opinion, autogenerate these files, nor should anything else for that matter.  The default should always be to not include them.

In my case I can't exclude the functions, nor can I see where any of them have a help file path property set, so I have to assume this issue root is with this LV release.  I'm currently at 2023Q3 but have also seen this issue with a 2024 build.  I am hoping this gets to the NI development folks.

Thank you.

[Christina_R]

This issue is being tracked as Bug 2870271.

[zironi]

where can i find the explanation of the solution to this bug?
how can i get around it?

[crossrulz]

There is no current work around. It is a matter of NI fixing their build process. Ironically, this bug was created due to a fix for another bug in the build process.

[psmorris]

I see this is marked as resolved in LV2025Q1... however... it still appears to happen in LV2025Q3 for PPL builds... 

I'll raise a ticket...

[Christina_R]

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@psmorris wrote:

I see this is marked as resolved in LV2025Q1... however... it still appears to happen in LV2025Q3 for PPL builds... 

I'll raise a ticket...

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LabVIEW R&D decided that including the CHM file dependency in PPL builds is correct behavior because PPLs are sometimes used to distribute VIs that are used for development.

[psmorris]

Hi Christina,

Thanks for the response.

Ok, in previous versions this could cause an issue as I think the chm file would be pulled into projects as a dependency of the PPL, when you then built PPLs of code calling the original PPL (and therefore its chm file) the build would complain as it was trying to write same the chm again to the place it was already put for the PPL build. I just tried it in LV2025 Q3 64bit, and this does seem to have been resolved, the end PPL does not show a dependency to the chm file... so that's good at least.

Thanks

Paul