Comments: Optimizing Current Path

[Chaos]

I have seen this type of thread more than once, and each reply (that I have noticed) seems to get a different VI or sub VI for the same solution. Thought I would start up a "optimize this" thread to get the best general solution. The one I made is smaller than most and should work within Windows, but relies on finding the first period in the path string. Does this have any obvious problems I have over looked or can this have unintended side effects on other platforms? Just curious...

[THailey3]

Hi Chaos,

I haven't looked at any of the "other" posts that you are referring to, but I'll throw in my 2 cents worth. The only problem with your approach is (like you mentioned) it relies on there being a "." in the file name. Most of the time this will be okay since most files have a ".ext", but not all files have extensions. For this reason, I attached a VI written in 7.1 that reverses the string and then searches for the first "\". It then reverses the string back to make the relative path. I can't think of any circumstances where this would back fire (I can't think of any circumstances where there wouldn't be a "\" in the path).

Hope this helps!

Travis H.
National Instruments

[Ben]

I use the approach illustrated in the attached jpg.

It keeps stripping the path until it finds a folder spec.

Works in development as well as in a built app.

Never tested it but it should be cross platform safe.

Ben

[shoneill]

I'm for Ben's approach.

5 Stars.

Shane.