Dotted Lines in LabVIEW VI Hierarchy Diagram

Updated Jun 5, 2018

Reported In

Software

  • LabVIEW

Issue Details

I am using LabVIEW object oriented programming. I have a parent class with a type definition included in it. When I load the parent class and child class into memory and view the hierarchy diagram, I see these dotted curved lines instead of the solid straight lines I usually see. When I remove the type definitions from the library, the dotted lines dissapear.

What do the dotted lines in the VI Hierarchy diagram mean?

Solution

The dotted curved lines will appear when you have circular dependencies. They aren't always a problem, but you are likely to run into problems when deploying the libraries. They happen when library A depends on library B, and library B depends on library A. You will likely see a warning about the dependencies, but not necessarily an error. 

Additional Information

Here are some suggestions to break the dependencies:
  1. Move the type definitions into a third library that both A and B depend upon.
  2. Consolidate your libraries into a singular library. 
  3. Move the VIs causing the circular dependency into the same library as their callers.

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