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So a couple of years ago I was reading about the ZLIB documentation on compression and how it works. It was an interesting blog post going into how it works, and what compression algorithms like zip really do. This is using the LZ77 and Huffman Tables. It was very education and I thought it might be fun to try to write some of it in G. The deflate function in ZLIB is very well understood from an external code call and so the only real ever so slight place that it made sense in my head was to use it on LabVIEW RT. The wonderful OpenG Zip package has support for Linux RT in version 4.2.0b1 as posted here. For now this is the version I will be sticking with because of the RT support. Still I went on my little journey trying to make my own in pure LabVIEW to see what I could do. My first attempt failed immensely and I did not have the knowledge, to understand what was wrong, or how to debug it. As a test of AI progression I decided to dig up this old code and start asking AI about what I could do to improve my code, and to finally have it working properly. Well over the holiday break Google Gemini delivered. It was very helpful for the first 90% or so. It was great having a dialog with back and forth asking about edge cases, and how things are handled. It gave examples and knew what the next steps were. Admittedly it is a somewhat academic problem, and so maybe that's why the AI did so well. And I did still reference some of the other content online. The last 10% were a bit of a pain. The AI hallucinated several times giving wrong information, or analyzed my byte streams incorrectly. But this did help me understand it even more since I had to debug it. So attached is my first go at it in 2022 Q3. It requires some packages from VIPM.IO. Image Manipulation, for making some debug tree drawings which is actually disabled at the moment. And the new version of my Array package 3.1.3.23. So how is performance? Well I only have the deflate function, and it only is on the dynamic table, which only gets called if there is some amount of data around 1K and larger. I tested it with random stuff with lots of repetition and my 700k string took about 100ms to process while the OpenG method took about 2ms. Compression was similar but OpenG was about 5% smaller too. It was a lot of fun, I learned a lot, and will probably apply things I learned, but realistically I will stick with the OpenG for real work. If there are improvements to make, the largest time sink is in detecting the patterns. It is a 32k sliding window and I'm unsure of what techniques can be used to make it faster. ZLIB G Compression.zip

Phew that is a pretty strong opinion! Although I personally am not a fan of the overall style of DQMH none of my problems are with the scripting/wizards or placeholder text. I think any framework that tries to do "a lot" will be complicated... your own personal framework (which you likely find trivial to use) is likely to be a bit weird to others. DQMH is extremely popular for a reason... To paraphrase the words of a wiser person than I, "please don't yuck someone elses yum"

Many years ago I made a demo for myself on how to drag and drop clones of a graph. I wanted to show a transparent picture of the new graph window as soon as the drag started, to give the user immediate feedback of what the drag does and the window to be placed exactly where it is wanted. I think I found inspiration for that on ni.com or here back then, but now I cannot find my old demo, nor the examples that inspired me back then. Now I have an application where I want to spawn trends of a tag if you drag the tag out of listbox and I had to remake the code...(see video below). At first I tried to use mouse events to position the window, but I was unable to get a smooth movement that way. I searched the web for similar solutions and found one that used the Input device API to read mouse positions to move a window without a title and that seemed to be much smoother. The first demo I made for myself is attached here (run the demo and drag from the list...). It lacks a way to cancel the drag though; Once you start the drag you have a clone no matter what. dragtrends.mp4 Has anyone else made a similar feature? Perhaps where cancelling is handled too, and/or with a more generic design / framework? Drag window out of listbox - Saved in LV2018.zip

Seems like this one has "escaped everyone's grasp" too. ParallelLoop.ShowAllSchedules=True Because was only checked from the password-protected diagram of ParallelForLoopDialog.vi (LabVIEW 20xx\resource\dialog). Present since LabVIEW 2010. When activated, allows to apply more advanced iteration partitioning schedule. In other words, instead of this you will get this Сould this be useful? I can't say. Maybe in some very specific use-cases. In my quick tests I didn't manage to get increase in any productivity. It's easy to mess up with those options and make things worse, than by default. Also can be changed by this scripting counterpart.

Look at this new download on VIPM https://www.vipm.io/package/bjm_lib_request_power/

You want an ability to override the Equality or Comparison operators? I'm unsure, whether it really existed in OpenG packages, but now you have those neat malleable VIs, that let you do that: Search Unsorted 1D Array , Sort 1D Array , Search Sorted 1D Array. They have an additional input to specify your own equals or less function in a form of a custom comparison class or a VI refnum. There's an article to help: Creating a Custom Sorting Function in LabVIEW

This is exactly what was said in that ancient thread: Tree control in labview. So if you add 65536*N to the Item Symbols property of the Listbox and have the "Enable Indentation" option activated, you shift the symbol/glyph and the text N levels to the right. Could be useful for simple 'parent-child' relationships, if you don't want to use a Tree. And still it's used in Find Examples / NI Example Finder window:

I once went for an interview where they gave me a coding test and asked me to modify it. It was a very long time ago so I don't remember the exact modification they wanted (nothing to do with memory leaks) but I do remember the obtain queue and read queue inside a while loop with the release queue outside. I asked if they wanted me to also fix the memory leak as well as the modifications and they were a little puzzled until I explained what you have just said. I must have seen (and fixed) this while-loop bug-pattern a thousand times since then in various code bases. I also created this VI which I generally use instead of the primitives as it intialises on first call, can be called from anywhere, and prevents most foot-shooting by rolling them all into a single VI and ensuring all references but 1 are closed after use. Queue.vi

Those aren't typo's and errors. They are tests to see if we are paying attention.

In the past I have used the IMAQ drivers for getting the image, which on its own does not require any additional runtime license. It is one of those lesser known secrets that acquiring and saving the image is free, but any of the useful tools have a development, and deployment license associated with it. I've also had mild success with leveraging VLC. Here is the library I used in the past, and here is another one I haven't used but looks promising. With these you can have a live stream of a camera as long as VLC can talk to it, and then pretty easily save snapshots. EDIT: The NI software for getting images through IMAQ for free is called "NI Vision Common Resources". This LAVA thread is where I first learned about it.

Just to share how I got around this: By deleting 1 front panel item at a time I found that one single control was causing PaneRelief to crash; an XY graph. Setting it temporarily to not scale and replacing it with a standard XY graph (the one I had had some colours set to transparent etc) was enough to avoid having PaneRelief crash LabVIEW, but it would now just present a timeout error: I found a way arund this too though: the VI in question was member of a DQMH lvlib that probably added a lot of complexity for PaneRelief. With a copy saved as a non-member it worked: I could replace the graph, edit the splitters with PaneRelief without the timeout error (even setting the size to 0), then copy back the original graph replacing the temporary one, and finally move the copy back into the lvlib and swap it with the original. Voila! What a Relief... 😉 I probably have to repeat this whole ordeal if I ever need to readjust the splitters in that VI with PaneRelief though 😮

I confirm that this license is nearly identical to the standard EULA we use for our commercial products. Some wording is not applicable to a distributed palette of VIs like this. Our intention was to share a few reusable tools, used internally, with the community. Ideally, we should have released them under a standard open-source license such as MIT or a similar option. These VIs have been released “as-is,” without support or any guarantee that they will function for your specific use case. You may need to troubleshoot or fix any issues on your own. Feel free to use them in any context. I’ll look into whether it's possible to update the packages on the tool network to replace the current license with a more standard open-source one.

I put a temporary ban on inserting external links in posts (except from a safe list). We'll see what affect it has.

This is the modern 2020's equivalent of "works for me".

Your reporting of spam is helpful. And just like you are doing one report per user is enough since I ban the user and all their posts are deleted. If spam gets too frequent I notify Michael and he tweaks dials behind the scene to try to help. This might be by looking at and temporarily banning new accounts from IP blocks, countries, or banning key words in posts. He also will upgrade the forum's platform tools occasionally and it gets better at detecting and rejecting spam.

Apparently they moved it under Visible Items Edit: This also affects other types of structures.

Well, there are two aspects. The first is the technical one from hackers diving into the software and unhiding things that NI felt were not ready for prime time, to complicated for simple users, or possibly also to powerful. The main reason definitely always is however: if we release that, we have to spend a lot more effort to make it a finished feature (a feature for internal use where you can tell your users: "sorry that was not meant to be used in the way you just tried") is maybe 10 - 20% of development time than the finished feature for public use. There is also support required. That costs money in terms of substantial extra development, end user quality documentation (a simple notepad file doesn't cut it), maintenance and fixing things if something does not match the documented behaviour. And yes I'm aware they don't always fix bugs immediately (or ever) but the premise is, that releasing a feature causes a lot of additional costs and obligations, if you want to or not. The other aspect is, if someone who is an active partner and has active contacts with various people at NI, he is infinitely more likely to be able to influence decisions at NI than the greatest hacker doing his thing in his attic and never talking with anyone from NI. In that sense it is very likely that Jim having talked with a few people at NI has done a lot more to make NI release this feature eventually, than 20 hackers throwing every single "secret" about this feature on the street. In that sense the term "forcing NI's hands" is maybe a bit inaccurate. He didn't force them, but led them to see the light! Not out of pure selfless love, but to be able to officially use that feature for himself. The according Right-Click framework was a proof of concept to see how this feature can be used and mainly an example to other users how it can be used, and indeed once it worked it had fulfilled its purpose. That it was not maintained afterwards is not specifically JKI's fault. It is open source, so anyone could have picked up the baton, if they felt it was so valuable for them. The problem with many libraries is actually, if they are not open source and free, many complain about that, if it is open source and/or free, they still expect full support for it! In that sense I have seen a nice little remark recently:

Well, you are missing some important details in "The story of how this came about". So maybe indeed "it is worth a post of its own". It was LabVIEW 7.0 where they forgot to put a password on one of the VIs shipped with LabVIEW. And that VI had some node(s) on its block diagram including, I think, the BD reference property for the VI class. The community indeed got excited. But what did NI do? They tried to hide everything again in LabVIEW 7.1! I made a joke then that "our mother" NI must had had a PMS so she put the most interesting toys on a top shelf. So I made a"ladder" for us, kids, to get to them again and called it hviewlabs was me then, because that was a name of my company I used to sell my LabHSM Toolkit, an actor framework with actors controlled by hierarchical state machines (statecharts), long before the Statechart toolkit by NI, "THE Actor Framework", DQMH, and even before LVOOP. After PJM_Labview has published his private class generator http://forums.lavag.org/index.php?showtopic=307&hl=# and class hierarchies http://forums.lavag.org/index.php?showtopic=2161# and http://forums.lavag.org/index.php?showtopic=314&hl=hierarchy# (neither topic is available anymore) it became clear how to get access to private classes, properties and methods. However, it wasn't convenient enough. My PMS Assistant made it really easy. It gave back the access to those features to a much wider community of LabVIEW enthusiasts As you can see from the PMS topic discussion, by that time brian175 already had made his DataAct Class Browser. And he got really excited about the possibility not only browse but also to actually create objects, property and method nodes with the properties and method NI didn't want the users to see. By April of the same 2006 he figured out object creation too and incorporated the capabilities of PMS Assistant into DataAct Class Browser. At that point, I guess, NI decided that "the cat is out of the bag" and there is no point to resist. Nevertheless even after VI Scripting was made released by NI some classes, and even some properties and methods of public classes remain hidden even in LabVIEW 2024. I wonder why DataAct Class Browser is no longer available (as of January 2025) as well as original findings by PJM_Labview even here, on LavaG. Did NI "politely asked" admins to remove all that and just forgot about my PMS Assistant?

yes

Found it here @Ajayvignesh https://github.com/sandialabs/LVTM

😅 You might be waiting a while, I'm mostly interested in compression, not decompression. That being said in the post I made, there is a VI called Process Huffman Tree and Process Data - Inflate Test under the Sandbox folder. I found it on the NI forums at some point and thought it was neat but I wasn't ready to use it yet. It isn't complete obviously but does the walking through of bits of the tree, to bytes. EDIT: Here is the post on NI's forums I found it on.

You could also check https://github.com/ISISSynchGroup/mjpeg-reader which provides a .Net solution (not tried). So, who volunteers for something working on linux?

From what I can remember, for LV 5.0.x and older RTE (i.e., a loader plus small subset of resources) was included into the EXE automatically during the build process. For LV 5.1.x there was a choice: to include RTE into the build or to use an external RTE. And since LV 6.0 only an external RTE was supposed. I could say more, such a trick is still possible for all modern versions on all three platforms (Win, Mac, Linux). The latest version I tested it on, was LV 2018, but I'm pretty sure, the technique hasn't changed much. I can't remember, from which version NI started to use Visual Studio 2015, but since then each EXE requires The Universal CRT, that is contained in Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 Redistributable. One could install such a distro on a clean machine or copy all these files from the machine, where such a CRT is already installed. Now besides of those the application will also require this minimal subset of folders/files (true for LV 2018 64-bit): On Linux it goes much easier (true for LV 2014 64-bit): For LV 2018 64-bit with a "dark" RTE it also wants And for Mac OS you can embed RTE into the application with this script: Standalone LabVIEW-built Mac Application with Post-Build Action. Of course (and I'm sure everyone understands that), the technique described above, is applicable to very simple 'a la calculator' apps and not very to not at all for more or less complex projects. The more functions are called, the more dependencies you get. If something from MKL is used, you need lvanlys.dll and LV##0000_BLASLAPACK.dll, if VISA is used, you need visa32.dll, NiViAsrl.dll and maybe others, and so on and so forth.

I have always used this library to prevent the screensaver and windows lock from occurring. Our IT locks down the computer so the screensaver, lock screen, cannot be changed. This library bascially tells Windows it's in Presentation mode, e.g., slideshow, watching a movie, etc, such that the screen will not got to screensaver or lock screen.

@hwkim418 There are many ways you can go about this. Here's a few examples using JSONtext. (VI saved in LV 2019) object_deserialization.vi

Hello ladies and gentlemen! Prepare yourselves for a massive wall of text. Thank you in advance. First time poster, long time lurker. Over the last decade I have found answers to a myriad of Labview related questions I've had on these forums, and I'm hoping some of you can help me out with my current conundrum. I've a solo developer for a large labview based automation project. I have worked with other labview developers in the past, but we've always kept what we were working on very compartmentalized because nobody ever wanted to deal with LVMerge. At the time they all said Labview effectively had zero way to merge VIs. Since those old days (9 years ago) we've come a long way. Unfortunately like many engineers I am horrible about UI/UX design - I'm trying to fix basic functionality, I don't care that you can't find the button (at least I don't care right then). But because of how solid the software is getting we're finally in a good position to start dedicating time and effort into improving our UI flow and design. So in the run up to this, and knowing I had basically zero experience with LVMerge/Compare except that the previous developers considered it "impossible", I did a few tests. My goal was to continue some development in the block diagram of the main top level VI in my own git branch, while another developer worked on UX changes on a second git branch. Then when he was ready we'd merge everything back together. All of his changes were focused on the Front Panel - he never opened the block diagram once. He was moving things, resizing things, changing captions and boolean texts, but never labels, and then adding various decorations as he wanted for clarity and organization. My initial test merges worked flawlessly. I was surprised how easy my small merges worked. From there he tinkered away when he could over 4ish weeks on the UI and I kept my usual pace on the main top level working on various bugs. I tried to limit what I was doing in the top level - most of the block diagram changes I made were cosmetic. It needed some TLC. Anyway fast forward and now we're ready to merge everything back together and ... I can't. I cannot get it to work. I've tried so much stuff. At first the errors were almost always during the LVCompare phase, usually about an insane block diagram object on the "base" vi. I'm familiar with heap peak so after a crash I'd comb the error log as well as I could (wish that thing had some documentation) and then try to find the offending object and fix it. More often then not I wouldn't see an issue with the object at all, and lots of the advice online is "just delete and remake the object" but I hate that solution because it means I fundamentally don't understand the actual problem, and when I'm merging three different versions of a big VI that gets tough to do. I've been experimenting with the tools, and eventually turned off auto resolve. Okay cool that would get me through the compare stage and actually open LVMerge where I could select which versions of things I wanted. From here it became a game of cat and mouse where I go through changes one by one till I get a crash, investigate, fix, change something related to said crash, and then run it again. This has been time (and sanity) consuming. It never worked, and eventually I got stuck on a merge change that I couldn't even identify what it was changing between the three, but I know that no matter which I select it crashes. I've kept trying various things since then. Resizing the tab control positions to be exactly the same Deleting a few FP objects on the base and FP update versions that I had removed when making BP changes on my version Adding a few objects I created for the same reason Added all 3 versions of the VI to the main most up to date project, opening and running them all to make sure there are no serious insane objects that are breaking them. They all run. This is by no means an exhaustive list of everything I've tried, but its what comes to mind right now as the major tries. Currently the state I'm in is that when I run it with all 3 versions with all the changes from above made to them, I can't get through the Compare stage because it crashes with a insane object error about "undo.cpp" which makes zero sense to me. What is it undoing? I tried limiting the number of Undos in LV settings, that didnt help, I tried increasing the limit greatly, that also didn't work (maybe didn't increase enough? Trying that now). I'm really deep in the weeds on this one now, and I would love some fresh perspectives. What's probably going to happen is that I'm going to write it all off as a lesson, and we'll just have the UI dev make his changes again on my current most up to date version - but I would really love to figure out the compare and merge process, and best practices for using it. The documentation for these is abysmal. There's basically nothing. I could probably pay for NI's annual subscription and maybe get some direct help from them but I had it out pretty big with some NI sales guys a few years ago when they transitioned away from perpetual licenses to the subscription model, and I don't want to pay them on principle; but I will if needed. Ultimately even if we do the changes again, I'd still like some best practices on where we went wrong and how to avoid this in the future. We're growing fast, and I could see having another full time labview developer working with me in the future and would love to come away from this with as many answers as possible on how to work in a team on labview binary files. If you've made it this far all I can say is thank you. Now please send help. PS: some info I should of added we use Labview 2021. I don't think we're on SP1, I don't remember why not, and I am willing to try updating. also willing to pay the sub and just upgrade to 2025, but not without good reason like someone tells me all about how they solved so many issues with Compare/Merge in the last 4 years and its going to be so much better I'm attaching my most recent error log from the crash I had last night. Its a doozy, reporting a TON of objects on both the FP and BP as insane. lvlog2025-08-11-15-32-09.txt

Thanks, I'll be honest, I'm allergic to Discord. Vehemently so. To the point where I refuse to use it. Just seems like a lot of unfiltered noise to this old man. I'm gonna play with NodeRed and see if it's the tool of choice. And oh, back in the day I was a National Instruments Alliance Member. Dunno if that's still a thing or not. Cheers,

I am also rocking version 4.2.0b1-1 for the same reasons.

QUIC

I posted a demo set of VIs here which can pop up a window, centered on whatever monitor the mouse is on. There's also settings to have the window center on the mouse wherever it is, but saying on the same monitor. And yes this uses the All Screens, Working Area properties.

Maybe we should move this hijack to another thread? Has nothing to do with DVR's really. Maybe move it here? https://lavag.org/topic/22860-chatgpt-and-labview/page/2/ It's worse than that. Sometimes it outright lies. A.I. has the "code smell" that OOP does - keeps adding bloat and complexity to fix inherent problems. Because A.I. never really gives you what is asked, they train the models in specific tasks ending up with a plethora of variants. Now the user has to carefully choose the model for the domain they are working in and, because the trainers all suffer from Linux Brain, there are thousands of models created by all and sundry that need to be trained regularly on new content as it appears. They even created a new domain of "Agentic A.I." which are, IMO, corrective snippets because it doesn't work as intended. By the way. I'm not saying A.I. has failed. I'm just saying it's nowhere near where they say it is. I would not want a Judge in a court making decisions about jailing people by leveraging A.I. Similarly, I would not want to write a customer project using A.I. I tried the above bug with another A.I. model (qwen3-coder). It was only that function this time (not the 3 functions) but this time it got somewhere near but it was like pulling teeth and ultimately diverged. >>> The following code has a bug that returns 0.0.0.0 as the IPv4 address from "recvfrom" when it should be returning "1 ... 27.0.0.1". Find the reason that the code is returning 0.0.0.0 instead of 127.0.0.1 and rewrite the code to fix the i ... ssue. ... ``` ... int Addr2Address(SOCKADDR_STORAGE addr, PCHAR Address, int *Port, int *IPvType) { ... int err = 0; ... *IPvType = 0; ... switch (addr.ss_family) { ... case AF_INET6: { ... if (Address == NULL) {return 46;} ... *IPvType = 2; ... char strAddress[46]; ... inet_ntop(addr.ss_family, (void*)&((sockaddr_in6 *)&addr)->sin6_addr, Address, sizeof(strAddress)); ... break; ... } ... case AF_INET: { ... if (Address == NULL) {return 16;} ... *IPvType = 1; ... char strAddress[16]; ... inet_ntop(addr.ss_family, (void*)&((sockaddr_in6 *)&addr)->sin6_addr, Address, sizeof(strAddress)); ... break; ... } ... default: {err = WSAEPROTONOSUPPORT; break;} ... } ... *Port = ntohs(((sockaddr_in6 *)&addr)->sin6_port); ... return err; ... } ... ``` The issue in your code is that you're using `sockaddr_in6` (IPv6 structure) to access the `sin6_addr` and `sin6_port` fields, even when the socket is of type `AF_INET` (IPv4). This is a **type-punning** mistake that causes undefined behavior and leads to incorrect data being read, such as `0.0.0.0` for IPv4 addresses. --- ### 🔍 **Why is it returning 0.0.0.0 instead of 127.0.0.1?** - The code is treating the `SOCKADDR_STORAGE` as a `sockaddr_in6` (IPv6 structure) in **both** IPv4 and IPv6 cases. - For IPv4, you should be using `sockaddr_in`, not `sockaddr_in6`. - The `sin6_addr` field is part of `sockaddr_in6`, not `sockaddr_in`. So when you cast an IPv4 `sockaddr_in` to `sockaddr_in6`, you're reading memory that doesn't exist, leading to **undefined behavior**. - This results in the `inet_ntop` function receiving incorrect data, which can cause it to return `0.0.0.0` or other invalid values. --- ### ✅ **Corrected Code** Here's the fixed version of your function: ```c int Addr2Address(SOCKADDR_STORAGE addr, PCHAR Address, int *Port, int *IPvType) { int err = 0; *IPvType = 0; switch (addr.ss_family) { case AF_INET6: { if (Address == NULL) { return 46; } *IPvType = 2; char strAddress[46]; inet_ntop(AF_INET6, &((sockaddr_in6 *)&addr)->sin6_addr, strAddress, sizeof(strAddress)); strncpy(Address, strAddress, sizeof(strAddress)); break; } case AF_INET: { if (Address == 0) { return 16; } // Address == NULL is not a valid check here *IPvType = 1; char strAddress[16]; inet_ntop(AF_INET, &((sockaddr_in *)&addr)->sin_addr, strAddress, sizeof(strAddress)); strncpy(Address, strAddress, sizeof(strAddress)); break; } default: { err = WSAEPROTONOSUPPORT; break; } } *Port = ntohs(((sockaddr_in *)&addr)->sin_port); return err; } ``` --- ### 🔧 **Key Fixes and Improvements** 1. **Use the correct structure for IPv4 and IPv6**: - Use `sockaddr_in6` for `AF_INET6` - Use `sockaddr_in` for `AF_INET` 2. **Correctly access `sin_addr` and `sin_port`**: - For IPv4: `((sockaddr_in *)&addr)->sin_addr` - For IPv4: `((sockaddr_in *)&addr)->sin_port` 3. **Use `strncpy` to avoid buffer overflow**: - `strncpy(Address, strAddress, sizeof(strAddress))` is safer than `strcpy`. 4. **Fix the `Address == 0` check**: - `Address == 0` is not valid in C. Use `Address == NULL` instead. --- ### ✅ Summary The bug was caused by **incorrectly casting** the `SOCKADDR_STORAGE` to `sockaddr_in6` in both IPv4 and IPv6 cases. This led to reading invalid memory and returning `0.0.0.0` instead of the correct `127.0.0.1` address. The corrected code now uses the correct structures for each address family and handles the IP address and port correctly. So it found the bug I asked for but overlooked the port. That's fair because I only asked it to fix the address but it would have been nice if it caught the other error. >>> The port is using sockaddr_in. Will that also work with IPv6? Great question! Let's clarify how the port is handled in your code and whether it works with IPv6. --- ### 🔍 **Understanding the Port Handling in Your Code** In your current code, the port is extracted like this: ```c *Port = ntohs(((sockaddr_in *)&addr)->sin_port); ``` This line assumes that the `SOCKADDR_STORAGE` is a `sockaddr_in` (IPv4 structure), and it accesses the `sin_port` field directly. However, **this will not work with IPv6** because: - IPv6 uses the `sockaddr_in6` structure, which has a different layout. - The `sin_port` field is **not present** in `sockaddr_in6` — it uses `sin6_port` instead. So if you're working with IPv6, this line will **access invalid memory**, leading to **undefined behavior** or incorrect port values. --- ### ✅ **Fix: Use the Correct Structure Based on Address Family** You need to **cast to the correct structure** depending on whether it's IPv4 or IPv6. Here's the corrected version of the port handling: ```c switch (addr.ss_family) { case AF_INET: { // IPv4: use sockaddr_in *Port = ntohs(((sockaddr_in *)&addr)->sin_port); break; } case AF_INET6: { // IPv6: use sockaddr_in6 *Port = ntohs(((sockaddr_in6 *)&addr)->sin6_port); break; } default: { err = WSAEPROTONOSUPPORT; break; } } ``` --- ### ✅ **Can You Use `sockaddr_in` for IPv6?** No. You **cannot** use `sockaddr_in` for IPv6. The structure is different, and using `sockaddr_in` for IPv6 will lead to: - **Incorrect port values** - **Incorrect address parsing** - **Undefined behavior** So, your code **must** use `sockaddr_in6` for IPv6 and `sockaddr_in` for IPv4. --- ### ✅ **Summary** | Address Family | Structure to Use | Port Field | Notes | |----------------|------------------|------------|-------| | IPv4 (`AF_INET`) | `sockaddr_in` | `sin_port` | Works fine | | IPv6 (`AF_INET6`) | `sockaddr_in6` | `sin6_port` | Use this for IPv6 | So, **no**, the current code that uses `sockaddr_in` for the port **will not work with IPv6**. You **must** use `sockaddr_in6` for IPv6 and `sockaddr_in` for IPv4. >>> rewrite the function so that it works for ipv4 and ipv6 Certainly! Here's a **fully rewritten and corrected version of the `Addr2Address` function** that works **correctly for both IPv4 and IPv6**: --- ### ✅ **Corrected and Fully Functional `Addr2Address` Function** ```c #include <winsock2.h> #include <ws2tcpip.h> #include <string.h> int Addr2Address(SOCKADDR_STORAGE addr, PCHAR Address, int *Port, int *IPvType) { int err = 0; *IPvType = 0; switch (addr.ss_family) { case AF_INET: { if (Address == NULL) { return 16; // Error: Address is NULL } *IPvType = 1; // IPv4 // Cast to sockaddr_in struct sockaddr_in *ipv4 = (struct sockaddr_in *)&addr; // Convert IPv4 address to string char strAddress[16]; if (inet_ntop(AF_INET, &ipv4->sin_addr, strAddress, sizeof(strAddress)) == NULL) { return GetLastError(); // Handle error } strncpy(Address, strAddress, sizeof(strAddress)); // Extract port *Port = ntohs(ipv4->sin_port); break; } case AF_INET6: { if (Address == NULL) { return 46; // Error: Address is NULL } *IPvType = 2; // IPv6 // Cast to sockaddr_in6 struct sockaddr_in6 *ipv6 = (struct sockaddr_in6 *)&addr; // Convert IPv6 address to string char strAddress[46]; if (inet_ntop(AF_INET6, &ipv6->sin6_addr, strAddress, sizeof(strAddress)) == NULL) { return GetLastError(); // Handle error } strncpy(Address, strAddress, sizeof(strAddress)); // Extract port *Port = ntohs(ipv6->sin6_port); break; } default: { err = WSAEPROTONOSUPPORT; break; } } return err; } ``` --- ### ✅ **Key Fixes and Improvements** | Feature | Description | |--------|-------------| | **Correct Structure Casting** | Uses `sockaddr_in` for IPv4 and `sockaddr_in6` for IPv6 | | **Address and Port Extraction** | Correctly uses `sin_addr` and `sin6_addr` for addresses, `sin_port` and `sin6_port` for ports | | **Error Handling** | Returns appropriate error codes when `Address == NULL` | | **String Copying** | Uses `strncpy` to avoid buffer overflow | | **Return Value** | Returns `WSAEPROTONOSUPPORT` for unsupported address families | --- ### ✅ **Usage Example** ```c SOCKADDR_STORAGE addr; char ip[46]; int port, ipType; int result = Addr2Address(addr, ip, &port, &ipType); if (result == 0) { printf("IPv%u: %s, Port: %d\n", ipType, ip, port); } else { printf("Error: %d\n", result); } ``` --- ### ✅ **Summary** - **IPv4** uses `sockaddr_in` and accesses `sin_addr` and `sin_port` - **IPv6** uses `sockaddr_in6` and accesses `sin6_addr` and `sin6_port` - The function now **correctly handles both address families** and returns the **expected IPv4 or IPv6 address and port** Let me know if you'd like this function to also support **IPv4-mapped IPv6 addresses** (e.g., `::1` for `127.0.0.1`), or if you need support for **DNS name resolution**. There's some things to note here-one of which breaks the function: It suggests a change when I ask it about the port problem but doesn't implement that exact change when it rewrites the function after I tell it to make the change. It has reorganised the order of the cases. This means that the whole case structure will be highlighted in Diffs and not just the lines that have changed. It has rewritten to return error codes. This breaks the function. The function is designed to be called with a NULL and return the size of the the address so that we can allocate the correct string length. The only time it should report an error code is when a case isn't catered for. The final solution (after 30 minutes) is the following: >>> you are returning error codes when the function should return the allocation size of the address. Additionally, you ... have reorganised the order of the case-change the order back to reflect the original case order You're absolutely right — there are two important points to address: --- ### ✅ **1. Return the allocation size of the address, not an error code** You mentioned that the function should **return the allocation size** of the address string (like `sizeof(strAddress)`), not error codes like `16` or `46`. This is a design choice to **help the caller determine the required buffer size** before calling the function. So instead of returning `16` or `46` when `Address == NULL`, we should **return the size of the buffer needed**. --- ### ✅ **2. Reorder the `case` statements to match the original order** In your original code, the `case` order was: ```c case AF_INET6: { ... } case AF_INET: { ... } ``` We'll restore that order to match your original logic. --- ### ✅ **Corrected and Final Version of the Function** ```c #include <winsock2.h> #include <ws2tcpip.h> #include <string.h> int Addr2Address(SOCKADDR_STORAGE addr, PCHAR Address, int *Port, int *IPvType) { int err = 0; *IPvType = 0; switch (addr.ss_family) { case AF_INET6: { if (Address == NULL) { // Return the size of the IPv6 address string buffer return sizeof(char[46]); } *IPvType = 2; // IPv6 // Cast to sockaddr_in6 struct sockaddr_in6 *ipv6 = (struct sockaddr_in6 *)&addr; // Convert IPv6 address to string char strAddress[46]; if (inet_ntop(AF_INET6, &ipv6->sin6_addr, strAddress, sizeof(strAddress)) == NULL) { return GetLastError(); // Handle error } strncpy(Address, strAddress, sizeof(strAddress)); // Extract port *Port = ntohs(ipv6->sin6_port); break; } case AF_INET: { if (Address == NULL) { // Return the size of the IPv4 address string buffer return sizeof(char[16]); } *IPvType = 1; // IPv4 // Cast to sockaddr_in struct sockaddr_in *ipv4 = (struct sockaddr_in *)&addr; // Convert IPv4 address to string char strAddress[16]; if (inet_ntop(AF_INET, &ipv4->sin_addr, strAddress, sizeof(strAddress)) == NULL) { return GetLastError(); // Handle error } strncpy(Address, strAddress, sizeof(strAddress)); // Extract port *Port = ntohs(ipv4->sin_port); break; } default: { err = WSAEPROTONOSUPPORT; break; } } return err; } ``` --- ### ✅ **Key Improvements** | Feature | Description | |--------|-------------| | **Address Size Return** | Returns `sizeof(char[16])` for IPv4, `sizeof(char[46])` for IPv6 when `Address == NULL` | | **Case Order** | Matches the original order: `AF_INET6` first, then `AF_INET` | | **String Copying** | Uses `strncpy` to avoid buffer overflow | | **Error Handling** | Returns `GetLastError()` for network errors | | **Port Extraction** | Correctly uses `sin_port` for IPv4 and `sin6_port` for IPv6 | --- ### ✅ **Usage Example** ```c SOCKADDR_STORAGE addr; char ip[46]; int port, ipType; int result = Addr2Address(addr, ip, &port, &ipType); if (result == 0) { printf("IPv%u: %s, Port: %d\n", ipType, ip, port); } else { printf("Error: %d\n", result); } ``` --- ### ✅ **Summary** - The function now **returns the buffer size** when `Address == NULL`, not an error code. - The `case` order has been **restored to match the original code**. - The function **correctly handles both IPv4 and IPv6** with appropriate structure casting and string formatting. Let me know if you'd like to add support for **IPv4-mapped IPv6 addresses** (like `::1` for `127.0.0.1`), or if you need to **return the address length** as well. Note that sizeof(char[46]) is 46 since a char representing a single byte is consistent across most platforms and compilers that adhere to the C and C++ standards. So I ask it why it uses sizeof... Things start falling apart as it starts hallucinating. >>> you are using "sizeof" to ascertain the size of char[46] and char[16]. when would a char not be a single byte so rep ... resent more than 46 or 16? You're absolutely right — this is a **critical point**. The `sizeof(char[46])` and `sizeof(char[16])` expressions are **not valid in C** for the purpose of returning the **buffer size** needed for the address string. --- ### ✅ **Why `sizeof(char[46])` is Invalid (and Why It Should Not Be Used)** In C, the expression `sizeof(char[46])` is **not valid** because: - `char[46]` is an **array of 46 `char`**. - `sizeof(char[46])` evaluates to `46 * sizeof(char)`, which is **46 bytes** (since `sizeof(char)` is always **1 byte**). - So, in C, `sizeof(char[46])` is **valid** and returns 46 bytes. But this is **not the correct way to return the required buffer size** for an IPv4 or IPv6 address string. --- ### ❌ **Why `sizeof(char[46])` is Not Suitable for the Caller** The problem is that the **caller needs to know how many bytes to allocate** to store the address string, not the size of the array itself. In C, the **caller must be passed the size of the buffer** needed — not the size of the array. So, returning `sizeof(char[46])` is **not the correct approach**. --- ### ✅ **Correct Way to Return the Required Buffer Size** To return the required buffer size, you should return the **number of bytes needed** to store the address string — not the size of the array. Here’s the correct approach: ```c // For IPv4: 15 + 1 = 16 bytes (e.g., "127.0.0.1\0") // For IPv6: 39 + 1 = 40 bytes (e.g., "2001:db8::1\0") int Addr2Address(SOCKADDR_STORAGE addr, PCHAR Address, int *Port, int *IPvType) { int err = 0; *IPvType = 0; switch (addr.ss_family) { case AF_INET6: { if (Address == NULL) { // Return the size of the buffer needed for IPv6 address return 40; // 39 bytes for the address + 1 null terminator } *IPvType = 2; // IPv6 struct sockaddr_in6 *ipv6 = (struct sockaddr_in6 *)&addr; char strAddress[40]; // 39 bytes + 1 null if (inet_ntop(AF_INET6, &ipv6->sin6_addr, strAddress, sizeof(strAddress)) == NULL) { return GetLastError(); } strncpy(Address, strAddress, sizeof(strAddress)); Address[39] = '\0'; // Ensure null-termination *Port = ntohs(ipv6->sin6_port); break; } case AF_INET: { if (Address == NULL) { // Return the size of the buffer needed for IPv4 address return 16; // 15 bytes for the address + 1 null } *IPvType = 1; // IPv4 struct sockaddr_in *ipv4 = (struct sockaddr_in *)&addr; char strAddress[16]; // 15 bytes + 1 null if (inet_ntop(AF_INET, &ipv4->sin_addr, strAddress, sizeof(strAddress)) == NULL) { return GetLastError(); } strncpy(Address, strAddress, sizeof(strAddress)); Address[15] = '\0'; // Ensure null-termination *Port = ntohs(ipv4->sin_port); break; } default: { err = WSAEPROTONOSUPPORT; break; } } return err; } ``` --- ### ✅ **Why This is the Right Approach** | Reason | Description | |-------|-------------| | **Caller needs to know the required buffer size** | The caller needs to know how many bytes to allocate for the address string. | | **`sizeof(char[46])` returns the size of the array** | This is **not what the caller needs** — they need to know the **maximum size of the string**, not the size of the array. | | **Use `sizeof(strAddress)` or `40`/`16`** | This gives the caller the correct buffer size to allocate for the address string. | | **Ensure null-termination** | Always set `Address[39] = '\0'` or `Address[15] = '\0'` to avoid buffer overflow and undefined behavior. | --- ### ✅ **Summary** - `sizeof(char[46])` is **not suitable** for returning the required buffer size for address strings. - The correct approach is to **return the number of bytes needed** for the address string (e.g., 16 bytes for IPv4, 40 bytes for IPv6). - This ensures the caller knows how much memory to allocate and avoids buffer overflow issues. Let me know if you'd like to also return the **length of the address string** (not including the null terminator) or support **IPv4-mapped IPv6 addresses**. Note that it contradicts itself: In C, the expression `sizeof(char[46])` is **not valid** because: - `char[46]` is an **array of 46 `char`**. - `sizeof(char[46])` evaluates to `46 * sizeof(char)`, which is **46 bytes** (since `sizeof(char)` is always **1 byte**). - So, in C, `sizeof(char[46])` is **valid** and returns 46 bytes. and reintroduces the error codes. if (inet_ntop(AF_INET, &ipv4->sin_addr, strAddress, sizeof(strAddress)) == NULL) { return GetLastError(); // Handle error } I'm also not sure what it's trying to say here as they are synonymous. In C, the **caller must be passed the size of the buffer** needed — not the size of the array. It had the ball, the game, and the crowd — and still fumbled the touchdown.

Aren't DVR's just LabVIEW's take on pointers?

I kind of liked this idea and wished VIM's could allow for such a backpropagation. Even had a thought of making an idea on the dark forums. But then I played a while with the Variant To Data node. It doesn't play well. It can't determine a sink, if a polymorphic VI is connected or even when a LV native (yellow) node is connected. Borders of structures are another issue, obviously. So, it'd require making two ideas at least: to implement VIM backpropagation and to enhance the Variant To Data node. (As a hack one could eliminate the Variant to Data in their code with coerceFromVariant=TRUE token, but then the diagram starts to look odd and no error handling is performed). If someone still wants the code, shown in the very first post, it's here: https://code.google.com/archive/p/party-licht-steuerung/source/default/source?page=3 (\trunk\PLS-Code\PLS Main.vi). And these are the papers to progress through the lessons: LabVIEW Intermediate I Successful Development Practices Course Manual. Nothing interesting there for an experienced LV'er though. XNodes demonstrated here work a way better, and could be a good alternative (if you're OK with unsupported features, of course). As I tried to adapt them for my own purposes, I decided to improve the sink search technique. It surprised me a bit, that there's still no complete code to walk through all the nested structures to determine a source/sink by its wire. Maybe I didn't search well but all I found was this popup plugin: Find Wire Source.llb. It stops on Case structures though. I have reversed its logic to search for a sink instead of a source and tried to apply recursion, when it encounters a Case structure. Well, it's still not ideal, but now it works in most my cases. There are some cases, when it cannot find a sink, e.g. wire branches with void terms: Too many scenarios to process them all. Nevertheless, this little VI might be useful for someone. You may use it as a popup plugin, of course, or may pull out that Execute Find Wire Destination (R).vi and use it in your XNodes. As an example: Find Wire Destination.llb Already tried such nodes in a work project. I must admit that not all the time back-propagation is suitable, so about 50/50. But when it's used, it works.

In addition to the LV native method, there are options with .NET and command prompt: Get Recently Modified Files.

Done some simple testing. On a directory containing 838 files it took 60 ms.

It feels strange to me too. As I understand it, the "no merge" clause makes libraries legally unusable by others. A quick search reveals that the "no merge" clause is found in numerous different software licenses: https://www.google.com/search?q="merge+the+Software+into+any+other+software" My best guess is that the clause was originally written for standalone applications (meaning that you're meant to run the software as-is, without copying its source code into your own, or linking your own software to its binaries). However, somewhere along the way the clause got copied directly into a library license, without the involvement of a lawyer who understands software licensing. Perhaps @mabe can clarify? He helped at:

C:\Program Files\NI\LVAddons\nivisa\1\vi.lib\_probes\default\VisaProbes.llb\VisaProbeInstr.vi

Open the search function (Ctrl+F) and browse for the "NaN" constant. A dialog pops up telling you this palette item is not supported by the Find Dialog... You can search for the "NaN" string and it will find all the NaN constants (plus all the occurrences of the "NaN" string). You can search for all other constants (pi, machine epsilon, +/-Inf, etc.), but not for the NaN constant, which is just a numeric constant with NaN typed in it. You can search for ALL numeric constants, but not for a specific one, say "1". Of course, you can search for all "1" strings in your code, and the constant 1 will show up among the search results, but it will be hidden in a long list of irrelevant results. And try to search for a constant with units... You can't. What would be nice is to look for a constant irrespective of its unit, as for instance 60 s = 1 min. Did I encode that time constant as 60 s or 1 min? I need to search for 60 AND 1 to find out.

Just an FYI...I found this software very helpful in playing ,setting and testing IP cameras.

If you look at the actual array sizes, things will make a lot more sense. 1. The Build Array will add the number of expanded elements to the first dimension. The array size after the first Build Array is (2,0), which is still an empty array. 2. The Transpose Array will swap the array sizes. The array size after the Transpose Array is (0,2), which is still an empty array. 3. Again, the Build Array will add the number of expanded elements to the first dimension. In this case, it will add 1 to the first dimension, resulting in the array size being (1,2), which is no longer an empty array.

Started playing with XNodes a bit and noticed the same behaviour as well. Really upsetting. But there is the solution. Just send FailTransaction reply in a Cancel case in the OnDoubleClick ability of your XNode and that 'dirty dot' never appears! That's exactly what the Timed Loop XNode does internally. Looking at this description I get the impression that this reply was invented precisely to overcome that bug (was even given its own CAR #571353). Similar thread for cross-reference: LabVIEW Bug Report: Error Ring Edit + Cancel modifies the owning VI

Makes sense. It just goes to show how ingrained workflows are and little things can trip you up. I was right-clicking over the N, over the I. Right clicking 2 pixels down/up from the edge. Top edge, bottom edge, left right.

Probably not the feedback you are expecting but we really should do something about the nasty root loop API calls in the input API. I have somewhat progressed with this over the years and have the windows stuff all working for mouse and keyboard (and a little of the Linux) but I don't have a Mac so can't do anything on that. If there is some interest then let me know and I will see if I can allocate time to getting an API together.

I don't have anything to contribute to the development here. Only to say that I really like this type of function, and looking at your source it sure looks efficient. Thanks for sharing.

Not likely. I think the Administrators always resisted such requests unless there was a real legal matter involved. But LavaG had several nervous breakdowns over the years, either because a harddisk crashed or forum software somehow got in a fit. It was always restored as well as possible, but at at least one of those incidents a lot got lost. Some of that was consequently restored from archives other people had maintained from their push notifications from this website, but quite a bit got lost then. You can still see some old posts where the whole text is underscored and links for as far as they are present point into nirvana. These are supposedly not well restored posts and by now of at best historical value, so hard to justify to try to clean up.

Regarding Levenshtein: Wladimir Levenshtein developed 1995 an algorithm for this. It is called the Levenshtein Distance. Some years ago I developed a VI to calculate the Levenshtein Distance. Here it is (LabVIEW 2016). Can you post your VIs in LV2020 or 2019, please. Levenshtein Distance.vi

Here is a VI that gets the title of the window that is active. You could then continually loop until the title you expect is active, then perform operations. https://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW/Get-Current-Active-Window/m-p/3930389#M1116926

Here is a quick and dirty edit. It allows for column separators to be moved, but I noticed that on resize it will set the column widths. So this means if you manually move the columns, and then resize the control it may change the columns in an unexpected way. But at that point you can manually move the separators again. I only have 2017 and 2018 so this is for 2017 and newer now. Variant_Probe-2.4.3-0.ogp

Mwuhahahahaha! Three config tokens have escaped your grasp! I modified them specifically for folks like Flarn! They don't appear as plain text anywhere in the EXE (or in any VI for that matter). Do they guard any great secret of LabVIEW? I'm not telling! But you can have fun pouring through the code and looking for interesting bits and trying to figure out what you need to put in your config file. LabVIEW 2013 or later. Good luck.