[LV FPGA] <BuildSpecVersion/> and <BuildSpecDescription/> tags left empty in lvbitx

[Former NI Employee MS]

Hi,

Using LV 13.0.1 (french) and LV FPGA 13.0.1, documentation tags <BuildSpecVersion/> and <BuildSpecDescription/> tags left empty in the generated lvbitx

Build specification screenshot:

Generated lvbitx screenshot:

• Is this expected ? (do I need to do some extra configuration in my LV/build specification ?)
• Is this a known bug ?
• What about editing the lvbitx file by hand ? Is it going to generate issues later on ?

Thanks for advice

Regards

[Former NI Employee MS]

Hi

Just re-asking

Thanks for helping

[Paolo_P]

Hi MathieuSteiner,

Thanks for posting your question in our forum.

This issue has already been reported in a CAR (n° 494874).

Can you explain what is your need to access those data?

Thanks

[Former NI Employee MS]

Hi Paolo,

Thanks for your feedback.

We need a way to be able to check a lvbitx so that we can associate it with a LV specification version number.

Final need is to be able to prove our customer that a specific lvbitx has actually been compiled with a specific revision of the code.

This is absolutely necessary for us to be able to achieve such a traçability.

Shall we edit the tags by hand, right after compilation is over ? Or it is going to end up generating issues ?

Regards,

[crandiba]

Hi Mathieu,

Same issue here, I was wondering if you ever heard back from NI regarding this?

Thanks,

[Paolo_P]

Hi Crandiba,

I'm going to report it. As a workaround, you can use the file "CodeGenerationResults.lvtxt" in the following folder : "C:\NIFPGA\compilation\YourFPGABitfileName". You can open it and look for the key "DocumentationInfo" that stores the version and the comments.

If you keep that file next to your bitfile, you can retrieve these information.

[crandiba]

Paolo,

Thanks a lot for looking into it. I have some additional points that may help.

The issue seems to be that when the CodeGenerationResults.lvtxt file gets generated, its <BuildSpecDescription> tags under <Documentation> are empty. Now, when the bitfile compilation is finished, LabVIEW appends part of this fie to the (start) of the .lvbitx. If, while the compilation is running for example, you edit the "CodeGenerationResults.lvtxt" and fill in the correct info, the bitfile will be correct, with the information filled in.

If I had to guess, I'd start looking into the "niFpgaBuild_GenerateCode.vi".

Now, on addressing the issue: I tried looking into editing the "CodeGenerationResults.lvtxt" but I can't seem to consistently find it: if you change the name of the bitfile, somehow the job folder in NIFPGA stays linked to the original (unique) bitfile name. I've looked everywhere and I can't seem to find where this location is stored: any thoughts on your end?

As such, I am editing the bitfile directly after it is created. It seems that it will still work, and also show that the signature is the same, so we've got that going for us at least.

Thanks a lot for help! 

[crandiba]

Hi again,

A small update on this; you can use the niFpgaBuild_GetTempDirectory.vi to get the compilation job folder path, and from there patch the "CodeGenerationResults.lvtxt". This means you can make your own niFpga build tools in which you inject the patch to the file in the middle of it. Alternatively, you could also patch the bitfile directly, but this just seems like the safest option at the moment. We have our own LabVIEWCLI build fpga custom operation setup like this. If anyone needs clarification/example or is looking into CI/FPGA versioning, I can ask if I can provide an example.

Hope that helps somehow, 

Thanks again,

Cris

[Joel_I]

If this is still an available option, I'd love to get an example VI of your implementation. I can't seem to get mine to work. Thanks.

[82Tank]

crandiba,

If you are still out there, I also would like a copy.  Also, is there any way to automatically add the version number to the lvbit filename?