GLA Summit 2021/The Pythonic Requirements From LabVIEW or TestStand
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| Conference | GLA Summit 2021 |
| Presenters | Jesper Kjær Sørensen |
The Pythonic Requirements From LabVIEW or TestStand by Jesper Kjær Sørensen
Extending existing code by implementing the new Python node in LabVIEW or integrating the new Python Adaptor test steps in TestStand brings a new set of challenges. First comes the challenge of selecting the right Python interpreter supported by LabVIEW or TestStand, and installing that consistently. The second challenge is the increasing complexity of using Python virtual environments for environment isolation. In Python, it is common practice but when using TestStand and LabVIEW this is handled differently across versions. On top of that, comes the challenge of defining the content of the Python environment and making sure that the custom functionality behaves consistently. Then you are ready to use the Python functions.A developer may be tempted to use the manual installation approach where the challenge becomes keeping the Python environment consistent and up to date, perhaps across multiple systems. This talk presents another and perhaps better approach. By leveraging the NI Package format as a tool for orchestration of both the installation order and installing the Pythons environments dependencies, you gain the following advantages:
Since NI Package Manager currently only supports Windows, the talk will focus on handling Windows-based Python Environments. The concepts are transferable even though the NI Package Manager is not supported on non-Windows platforms.
- Using NI Packages to version and install the Python interpreter on the target PC.
- Environment synchronization on both the development machine and test system or production system, through package installations.
- Contained environments supporting offline installations
- Leverage existing technology to provide direct dependencies from both LabVIEW and TestStand deployments.