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Does anyone know of a resource that describe the differences in speed, etc. for the various file I/O types (Spreadsheet files, Text files, Binary files and Config files).
I'm really trying to decide if Config files are a good place to store program setup information. Right now I use Spreadsheet files that are actually arrays of clusters that were flattened. I always read them in on power up and fill in the global variables. Then I use the data in the globals for ever more. I've read that a better way is to read them into un-initialized shift register vi's. It appears from looking at the Config File I/O vi's that they might be doing that same thing. Does that make them really fast and efficient? What happens if you leave th e file reference open for days and days? What happens if the system crashes?
I don't have the benchmarks but i would say that configurations files must be better choice for you to store data for your VI. I'm saying this because the data in INI files are cetagorized into sections and keys, which makes searching for data easier than if you had reguular text file or spreadsheet file.
The file references are automatically closed when you close labview or when the VI is unloaded from memory. This is my $0.02
