how to mass down convert 2010 to 8.6 (question not a request)

[schddc]

I have near 700 vis and 75 ctls mixed between LV2010 8.6. Is there any easy way for me to mass down covert them all to 8.6? I own LV 8.6 and LV2010. On 2010 I found a mass compile function but I cant pick which version to compile to.

[RavensFan]

I think you should be able to do it with some scripting help.

Basically a VI that will open a list of VI's (array of file paths), then does the Save for Previous method to save to the earlier version.  Just doing all of that in a For Loop.

There is probably a VI somewhere in the forums someone has posted that does that.  Do a search.  If I can find it, I'll post the link here.

[altenbach · Accepted solution]

Masscompiling is to convert to the the current version.

What is the relation between all the VIs? Are they all subVIs of a few toplevel VIs? Are they all part of a LabVIEW project? Are they all in a few folders?

• If there are only a few toplevel VIs, just open these and convert them down using "save for previous", they will drag all depedencies (subVIs, controls, etc.) down with them to the new output location.
• If they are all in a LAbVIEW project, downconvert the project using "save for previous".
• If they are not part of a project, create a new project and all all relevant forlders as snapshot folders. Now donwconvert the newly created project.
• ...

In all cases, you will get a new set of all VIs in a new location. You cannot donwconvert overwriting the existing VIs.

[RavensFan]

Here is a VI I created based on what I was thinking.  (I couldn't find what I was looking for when I searched.)

Warning.  I haven't fully tested this.  And after reading Altenbach's message about the dependencies, I'm not sure how this would work.

What I have is you give it a path to a folder where all of your VI's are saved.  You give a path to where you want the VI's saved to.  It will gather a list of all the filenames in that folder, open then individually, then save for previous.

I haven't done any special error handling (like if you had a non-LabVIEW file in the folder.  I haven't handled subdirectories.  (OpenG does have some useful VI's such as a recursive file list.)  And as I said, I don't know how it would handle having a dependency in the same folder.

So use this cautiously as a basis to programmatically cycle through VI's to convert.  I'd recommend working on a few at a time, then a bit more complicated things, before turning this loose all at once on a full directory of 700 VI's.  Make a safe backup of that before going on, also.

(It turns out that the methods used weren't scripting functions after all.)

[schddc]

@altenbach

they are mostly subVIs but not all of them are used. None of them are projects. I have 3 folders containing a folder structure that looks like this.

├───Base Level <-VIs linking to dll functions
│   ├───Group A
│   ├───Group B
│   ├───Group C
│   ├───Group D
│   ├───Group E
│   ├───Group F
│   ├───Group G
│   └───Group H
├───Top Level Tests <- VIs using the base level subVIs
└───tools <- Helper VIs and ctls

I do have something I call a "diagram VI" which is a VI I have containing all my Base Level and Top Level VIs in the block diagram organized in their groups as a quick reference. However im not positive all my VIs are listed in it and I know it doesnt contain any vis in the tools but some of the Top level VIs use the tool VIs.

@RavensFan

Thanks for the VI, ill do some experiementing

[paul_cardinale]

Do something like this.

[RavensFan]

The heart of your VI is the same thing as I posted several messages ago.  You just created a different user interface around.

Also, please don't post VI's to the forums that are set to run automatically when called.

[Yamaeda]

Create a new VI where you dump all vi's.

Use Save as previous version. 🙂

/Y

[crossrulz]

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@schddc wrote:

I have near 700 vis and 75 ctls mixed between LV2010 8.6. Is there any easy way for me to mass down covert them all to 8.6? I own LV 8.6 and LV2010. On 2010 I found a mass compile function but I cant pick which version to compile to.

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If was just a few VIs, I would tell you to put them all into a project and do the Save for Previous on the project.  But with that many, I would highly recommend the scripting method that Ravens Fan gave you.