LabVIEW
Get Type and Creator Function - Help Incomplete!
@parthabe wrote:
Why is LIBP not mentioned in the Help??
In other words, why is some file type which is not specified in the Help used inside the code, that too inside a VI (C:\Program Files (x86)\National Instruments\LabVIEW 2016\vi.lib\Utility\libraryn.llb\Check if File or Folder Exists.vi) which is being shipped by NI?!
Because this function was in LabVIEW as long as LabVIEW self existed. It was mainly there to support the File Type and File Creator information from the Macintosh Finder. When the LabVIEW code got ported to support Windows and Unix for LabVIEW version 2.5, this function implemented on these new platforms some simulation functionality for all known LabVIEW file types, and a generic type for anything else.
LabVIEW Libraries and packed libraries together with classes and more got only added after version 8.0. Someone apparently did since update the code in the underlying functions to support these new file types too, but this improvement didn't quite make it into the accompanying documentation. So yes you found a documentation bug, but you also know now why the documentation doesn't mention this new types.
And most likely the person adding support for this new type didn't even know that it would have any effect on the File Type and Creator node. This addition was done somewhere deep inside the LabVIEW C source code to support some new internal functionality and these same low level functions are ultimately called by the File Type and Creator node. Sure when you make changes to code, you have to check all potential users of that code, but we all know how that goes.
And the person using it in the VI you checked, most likely never looked at the documentation as he or she knew the function so intimately that this was not necessary, but a simple and quick test showed that the LIBP distinction was available in this way. That function also makes use of the low level Type and Creator node for distinction of LLBs.
Doesn't anybody notice the "Submit feedback on this topic" link at the very bottom of the help documents?
What Tim said!
And maybe a good subject to place in a community nugget!
I, for one, Would like to know the workflow internal to NI that, punching those hyperlinks starts. I know that this is a seldom used feature. Perhaps we can help them help us help you by clicking thos links more often
That said- The NI Help files are some of the best documentation for products I have ever seen! But they are not perfect.
