functions or procedures in TestStand2.0

[Roman Malytskyy]

I have a lot of operations, which i have to do in every (or almost every) step in my TestStand sequence. Now it's done as PreExpresion. But i think it would be much more nice if there was something like "void lots_of_stuff_i_dont_have_to_put_in_every_step()" or "TYPE function_that_does_alot(param1,param2 ...)". It seems to me that Evaluate() function can't do such thing (especially when we have lots of expressions, separeated by ";"). Of cource, i can do it in external DLL, but what for is sequencer than? Does anyone have ideas?

Thank you in advance.

[KittF]

Roman,

Have you considered using Prestep and Poststep engine callbacks. When these sequences exist they are called before and after every step respectively. Within the sequences you can have any desired control logic.

You might also want to consider creating a custom step type in which you can define as many pre- and post- substeps as you desire. This of course requires writing code that the substeps will call. If you don't want to do this then stick with the callbacks. For your custom step types you can also set the default values of the step properties (e.g. pre- and post- expressions).

Finally, remember that you can combine step types. Therefore, if you create a couple of custom step types that have your desired substeps and settings, you can combi
ne them with existing step types so that your new step types have the combined functionality.

Let me know if one of these solutions meets your needs or how you might invision an improvement to the features.