Can you avoid recompiling the VI file every time you make a small change?

[Kettering]

We have a fairly large VI that takes around an hour to compile and we would like to make small changes without recompiling everytime we go to run the program.

[Ben]

Is it one VI or many?

Ben

[Mark_Yedinak]

If this is one huge VI then you should really consider breaking it down and using subVIs. I have worked on some very large, complex applications and rarely ever notice that it has recompiled. I suspect that what you are doing is the equivalent to a C program where the entire program is in main (). Regardless of the language it is never a good idea to write your code this way. LabVIEW is no exception.

[GregFreeman]

When you say compile. do you mean "build"?

[WayneS1324]

Wow! I'd love to see a vi that takes an hour to compile! Or even build for that matter.

[Ben]

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@WayneS1324 wrote:

Wow! I'd love to see a vi that takes an hour to compile! Or even build for that matter.

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I can help you with that!

Search for my Mouse Tendon rendered in a 3d graph.

Run it, set the current as the default, hit ctrl-s, and go out and play catch with the grandkids. It will still be saving when you get back.

Ben

[Butch_Gates]

Kettering,

What is the nature of your "Small changes"? 

Are these actual acutal "functional" code changes or are they changes to constants or variables?

[LV_Pro]

Be more specific Ben when you say I can help you with that, is there a fix to the problem, or just a reply to the poster that wants to see a long compile?  Mouse Tendon in 3D, sounds like Disney's attempt at a horror movie.

As asked before, when you say compile are you refering to the time between clicking the run button and when it starts running, or the time "building" an exe? If it is the former, any change that causes an asterix * to show up in the title bar will cause a recompile, as it changes the underlying code. LabVIEW, even in the development, editing mode, runs compiled code when it runs.

[Norbert_B]

Just to clearify some things since i am not sure if you are asking the question in the correct way:

Terminology:

Compile: To convert source code into machine code which can be executed by a runtime engine.

There have been quite some changes to LV on how it compiles code, but with newer LV (2009/2010), the code is compiled when pressing the Run button. This is required since otherwise the execution of the code would not include any changes you have done to it previously (it would simply run the last compiled state of the code). There is no way that you suppress this compilation if you have made changes to the code.

When working with LV 2010, there are two abstraction layers included during the build process. This results in longer compile times, but the abstraction layers do include optimization algorithms which, in average, will improve performance by about 20% in comparison to 2009.

As already assumed by replies here, you should not mix "compile" with "building an executable". From your description, i tend to believe that you use "compile" correctly, but it is not really clear.....

As suggested by some replies, if you have a single large VI taking hours to compile (note: i am not talking about building an executable here!0, your VI is WAY TO BIG. Split it up, use subVIs. Remove redundancies in your code to eliminate unecessary compilation time.

hope this helps,

Norbert

[Ben]

Putnam,

I was replying to Wayne who stated he wanted to see a VI that took an hour to compile.

The "Mouse Tendon" was a thread where a person had sample dat representing slices through a sample of a mouse tendon. The code I posted in that thread renders the slices in a 3d graph so that you can see into the tendon.

Ben