Having relative search directories

[warren_scott]

I'm trying to get some customizations to my TestStand search paths to work out, and am failing miserably.

Background (maybe overly simplified / generalized, but should get the idea across):

Our code is structured something like this:

C:\Project_A\TestStand\* (.seq lives here)

C:\Project_A\LabVIEW\* (LabVIEW code lives here)

C:\Project_A\CVI\* (CVI code lives here)

C:\Project_Common\* (shared stuff between Project_A and Project_B....)

We have a bunch of LabVIEW code modules in the LabVIEW directory, and we have a bad practice of moving them around within that LabVIEW directory (creating/changing the subdirectory structure within LabVIEW folder).

Often the VI's within Project_A and Project_B are named the same (bad practice, but sins of the past exist)

What I want to do, is when I open Project_A's .seq file, have it quickly find all the code modules for it, and when I open Project_B's .seq file, find those.  (and work equally good in sequence editor and any runtime UI)

Because we often move the VI's around, we cannot use absolute paths to the VI's -- we need full relative paths.  Generally this means just the file name, not even the path relative to any search directory.

So what I really want, is to have a search path in TestStand that is <current sequence file directory>\..\* 

I went to configure search directories in TestStand, and couldn't quite figure out how to do this through the UI, so I went and edited testexec.ini directly (lucky to save it in TS3.5 ini file format), and configured search directory

[Config.SearchDirectories[12]]
SearchSubDirs = True
Path = "<Current Sequence Dir>\\..\\"

But this doesn't seem to work at all. 

Any suggestions (beyond restructuring our code)?

[Josh_L1]

Hi Warren,

If I understand the issue correctly, you are looking to update all of your TestStand code modules to relative paths. I found a couple of example links that might help simplify this task.

TestStand File Path Update Utility

https://decibel.ni.com/content/docs/DOC-7492

Automatically Replacing Absolute Paths with Paths Relative to the TestStand Search Directories

http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/epd/p/id/87

I would also suggest using a 3rd party tool called search everything. It's a great app that allows the user to locate a searched file anywhere on the computer. Its download link is listed below.

http://www.voidtools.com/

I hope this helps.

Regards,

Josh L.

[Erik_Crank]

The best solution I can come up with is to move your sequence files up one level in the directory structure so that all the dependent VIs and Dlls are in subdirectories. Then you can enable the Search Subdirectories option of the Current sequence file directory search directory. I can think of no other way to ensure that sequence files from project A and B get the correct paths when you use simple file name relative paths in your sequence files.

If you work on only one project at a time, another option for you is to have a workspace for each project. When you load the workspace for a project TestStand will look for paths relative to that workspace. However, this doesn't solve your problem if you open a sequence file for project B while the workspace for project A is open.

[warren_scott]

Sounds like it won't work the way I would hope.

I've opened an Idea Exchange entry for this.  Hopefully the votes will come and it will work this way in another year or two!