A Great Intro To Unit Testing
As many of you may know Fabiola De la Cueva and Richard Jennings came out with a new LabVIEW book this year (actually the 5th edition of an existing book) LabVIEW Graphical Programming. I have been meaning to write a review, but I have put it off because I haven’t had time to read the whole book yet. As Fab reminded me recently I don’t have to read the whole book to write a review. I can write a review of the parts that I have read. So here is a review of the Unit Testing chapter.
My conversation with Fab started when I made the remark that after reading the traditional books on unit testing, that it was hard to translate those texts directly into LabVIEW given LabVIEW’s unique nature. She quickly reminded me of her book and the chapter on unit testing (which I had previously read). To be honest, I’m not sure why that did not immediately occur to me other than the fact that it is only one chapter in the book. However the book is 588 pages and 87 of them are dedicated to unit testing. Aside from the frameworks chapter, it is the longest chapter in the book.
All you need to get started unit testing in LabVIEW
The Unit Testing chapter is quite thorough. It starts with a little theory but quickly turns very practical. It has detailed examples of how to use NI UTF, JKI VI Tester, Caraya, InstaCoverage, and Peter Horn’s assert framework. It also touches on testing FPGA and RT code. It even talks about how to test asynchronous processes like DQMH. If you are curious about getting started with Unit Testing in LabVIEW, then this chapter is for you. As a bonus you get the rest of the book. I haven’t read it, but knowing Fab and having skimmed over it briefly I am sure it is full of great advice.
