Execution highlighting

Execution highlighting is a debugging feature in LabVIEW that allows users to observe data flow as a VI runs. When execution highlighting is enabled, execution speed is reduced and parallel code runs sequentially.

Since parallel code runs sequentially when execution highlighting is enabled, it cannot be used to debug concurrency issues or race conditions.

Execution highlighting can be toggled through the Highlight Execution / Do Not Highlight Execution button in the Block Diagram window of a VI. It can be enabled before a VI runs, while a VI runs, or when a breakpoint is reached. Execution highlighting will continue for the rest of the VI or until it is disabled.

VI Scripting

Using VI Scripting, execution highlighting can be controlled through the Highlight Execution? property of the TopLevelDiagram class.

Custom probe

LabVIEW 2019 added the Toggle Execution Highlighting custom probe that will toggle execution highlighting when the execution flow reaches the probe.