LabVIEW Configuration File VIs are very powerful. Here are some applications where I have used them.
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1.) An INI file editor that lets the user select an INI file and then the section and then the key all from pull down menus. The user can add, modify or delete sections and keys and values of the keys. This, by itself, is not much help over an editor like notepad, so I added a way to pull in a key or an entire section from another INI file. There are lots of prompts to remind the user to save the results since all this works on the open Config File Refnum and changes can be aborted just by not saving.
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2.) An INI file batch mode tool. This opens a folder full of INI files with the user selecting the "pattern" (ex. *.ini), reads all of them to get all sections and keys, makes a table of all keys in the user selected section with an oppotunity to save this table to CSV, and allows the user to read, write, or delete a selected key in a selected section of all of the INI files in that folder. This is useful when a large number of INI files are used for setups for testing a bunch of similar items and they all need the same parameter added with the same value.
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3.) Use of the INI File Refnum to pass around variables in a program down into and back out of subVIs. I open the same INI File Refnum each time the program starts. I write the file to hard drive only when exiting the program. While running the parameters of the test are passed around in sections by tag name, this is handy for ease of adding or removinf parameters without breaking a cluster reference. I did this for my ease of programming, but a nice feature came from it that the program can start back up right where it left off, like a dishwasher stopped in mid-cycle, because its state is preserved in the saved INI file. When going between some subVIs where the INI file RefNum will not be preserved, I can write the INI file to hard disk and read it back to re-open the RefNum.
