Save and restore clusters. Restore won't know which values are being restored.

[george seifert]

I'd like to be able to save and restore data from clusters. The data in each cluster will vary (different control types and number of controls). Saving is the easy part if I use XML. The restoring part is where I'm stuck. I won't know beforehand which controls are to be restored. So I think I need to somehow get the data from the stored values in order to do the restore. Any hints to get me started would be welcome.

George

[Ton Plomp]

I'd like to be able to save and restore data from clusters. The data in each cluster will vary (different control types and number of controls). Saving is the easy part if I use XML. The restoring part is where I'm stuck. I won't know beforehand which controls are to be restored. So I think I need to somehow get the data from the stored values in order to do the restore. Any hints to get me started would be welcome.

George

What about this little piece of code:

The trick is to get the controls-data in a cluster where each element has the name of the specific control.

You can use the OpenG Variant toolkit VIs to build the cluster.

Ton

[Dragoon235]

The data in each cluster will vary (different control types and number of controls)

It's important to note that clusters are not dynamic. They are similar to struct's in C/C++. For example, an out port on a case statement; you cannot wire a cluster of two booleans and a cluster of a boolean and a numeric to the same port. You will get a broken wire. They are different types.

Variant datatypes store the data as well as the metadata for interpretation of said data. Flattened strings can also be used for this purpose, but they require a little more management by the programmer.

Here is a good article on variants and flattened strings from NI's Website:

NI on Variants

[george seifert]

I found some old code that I think will work. It saves and restores flattened data. The control name is stored so it knows where to restore it to.

Thanks for the suggestions.

George

[Omar Mussa]

Shameless plug - you could also just use the JKI EasyXML toolkit for this.