LabVIEW Library

A LabVIEW Library (*.llb) is a LabVIEW container file for multiple non-LLB files, these LLB files can be read by various versions of LabVIEW (backwards compatible). There are several pro's and con's on LLBs

• Pro's
  • Files inside an LLB can have non-OS allowed names, including '?'
  • Filenames can be longer than 8 characters (Windows 3.x)
  • Files are accessible like normal files on disc, the LLB filename is treated like a folder
  • Toolkits can be distributed as one file, including LabVIEW Project Libraries, LabVIEW Classes, and/or XControls
  • You can mix LabVIEW versions of files inside one LLB

• Con's
  • If a file inside an LLB gets damaged the whole LLB is unreadable
  • If you export a file with an unsupported character you have to rename and relink code
  • It is not searchable with OS indexing tools

NI recommends not to use LLB's for code development, if you want to convert an LLB to normal files the LLB browser of LabVIEW has a function to create a folder with the same name as the LLB with LLB extension with all the VIs included, this gives the possibility to use the same path-names for the files.

How do I save my LLB VIs that have bad filenames?

When saving VIs from a LLB (library) file to directories, the LabVIEW File Manager sometimes responds that it can not handle the "bad" filenames. The problem is that some of the files in the LLB are saved with "/", ">", "<", "?" characters in the file name, and these do not translate into valid filenames in the target file system.

The solution: 1. Make a backup. VERY IMPORTANT! 2. Load the hierarchy as-is, including all the VIs that call the problem VIs (ie those that give bad filenames). 3. Open the problem VIs and give them legal filenames using the "Save As" File option. 4. Close all the other VIs, saving any that have changed (ie callee's path has changed). 5. Use the File Manager to delete the bad VIs. 6. Convert the LLBs to directories.