Questions about Application Builder

[Enrique]

I do not have application builder, but I plan to get it soon. I have several questions to have a good feel about it beforehand:

1. When creating exe or dll, do I always need to distribute the LabVIEW Run-Time Engine too?

2. Can I write code where my exe or dll will work without the LabVIEW Run-Time Engine?

3. I read an example on how to create a dll. However, the dll in the example only consist of one function. Can I create dll consisting of several functions? Can I convert a llb into a dll, converting each vi in the llb into a function for the dll?

Thank you!
Enrique

[MichaelAivaliotis]

Answers:
1. YES
2. NO
3. Labview ties each function to a VI. So in the application builder, every VI you add becomes a function. I don't think you can convert an LLB like you describe however you can convert all the VI's inside an LLB to VI's within a directory so then you can take the whole directory and add the VI's to the DLL.

[Brian_Vibert]

As far as I know you will need the Run-Time Engine installed on any machine that you want to run built application on. Once it is installed on the machine there is no need to reinstall it for other apps unless you change the version of LabVIEW.

I haven't done too much with dlls, but I've built a few for experiments and as far as I can see you can create a dll with multiple functions where each function is a VI. I don't think you can add the contents of a llb automatically, you have manually add each VI from a llb to the dll.

I hope this helps, let us know if you need more information.

Brian

[Greg_McKaskle2]

> I do not have application builder, but I plan to get it soon. I have
> several questions to have a good feel about it beforehand:
>
> 1. When creating exe or dll, do I always need to distribute the
> LabVIEW Run-Time Engine too?
>
> 2. Can I write code where my exe or dll will work without the LabVIEW
> Run-Time Engine?
>
> 3. I read an example on how to create a dll. However, the dll in the
> example only consist of one function. Can I create dll consisting of
> several functions? Can I convert a llb into a dll, converting each vi
> in the llb into a function for the dll?


1. The EXE and DLL must have the runtime engine, the HW drivers, and HW
configuration on the machine where it will run. Do you have to
distribute the runtime? Maybe. The runtime
is available on the web.
If you do not distribute it, then the people that need to run your EXE
can get it and install it for themself, but they may prefer you to
install if for them. How nice do you want to be?

2. Not using LV. For a VI to execute it needs the runtime engine, much
like how an MFC app needs the MFCRTxx.DLL and other support files
installed before they will run. The big difference is that the support
files for MFC come with the OS, the LV ones do not. You can
redistribute them or they can come from the NI web site.

3. You can have many functions within a DLL. You will need to describe
each of them and add it to the DLL. There is no automatic way to
build the function description.

Greg McKaskle