programmatically launch FPGA compilation

[Terry_ALE]

I too am interested in this.

[Terry_ALE]

Looks like LabVIEW 2018 has files for automating LabVIEW FPGA builds:

C:\Program Files (x86)\National Instruments\LabVIEW 2018\vi.lib\rvi\CDR

[TurboPhil]

The programmatic compilation VIs under C:\Program Files (x86)\National Instruments\LabVIEW 20xx\vi.lib\rvi\CDR are completely undocumented and password-protected, so it is very hard to troubleshoot problems that arise.

And in our limited experience with attempting to leverage these files, the behavior is wildly inconsistent. Calling "C:\Program Files (x86)\National Instruments\LabVIEW 20xx\vi.lib\rvi\CDR\niFpgaBuild_Compile.vi" multiple times on the same source code sometimes actually compiles and other times apparently does nothing at all (including not throwing any sort of errors).

Are there any other tools available to do the compilation, or is it even on the roadmap to try to provide a real alternative? As it stands now, these tools are pretty unacceptable. Can anyone from NI proper comment?

[Gryffin]

This VI just saved me years of my life

[Gryffin]

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@DAQjr wrote:

Hi Ray,

I've thrown together something that works for me to build multiple FPGAs in multiple projects with multiple build specs for a single VI.  In my case, I build the same VI for several targets and with different Conditional Disable Symbols, so I have to resave the top-level VI in the context of the target I'm about to build.  It could be improved to find all the dependencies and save them, in case there were Conditional Disable Structures in subVIs as well as the top-level VI.

It's not pretty and it may get at references less directly than possible.  Any clean-up suggestions on the VI Server code is welcome.

Hope this helps,

-Joe

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This VI just saved years of my life