Basic Newbie Question

[DoomPirate]

Hi, I am trying to add a light display to indicate when a certain portion of my code is running. Basically, I need to know how to turn on and off a single boolean indicator within a flat sequence structure. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

[MikeS81 · Accepted solution]

Hi DoomPirate,

place your indicator in the first frame and a local variable or an property node of it in the last.

It's also possible with only the indicator if you use a statemachine architecture.

Mike

[DoomPirate]

Thanks mike, It worked. I went with the property node route. I wasted 5 hours trying to get it to work last week. I had a major headache.

[Yamaeda]

One thing you can try now, which is quite beutiful code:

Make a while loop

Create a led indicator

Connect the indicator to the while loop and make it a shift register

/Y

[altenbach]

As a basic newbiew, you make the mistake of sequence overuse. They are very rarely needed. You should always think in terms of a state machine.

Here is a very simple linear two-state machine that duplicates your code quite accurately. As you can see, no sequence structures, local variables or property nodes are needed.

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DoomPirate wrote:
Thanks mike, It worked. I went with the property node route. I wasted 5 hours trying to get it to work last week. I had a major headache.

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Here's another big beginner mistake. In simple cases like this, you should always pick a local variable over a value property node. Property nodes are literally orders of magnitude more expensive. Property nodes should only be used if really needed (e.g. access an element inside a cluster or in another VI). 

Message Edited by altenbach on 06-29-2009 09:08 AM