Why Don't My LabVIEW VIs Show Up Under Dependencies?

Updated Nov 6, 2023

Reported In

Software

  • LabVIEW
  • LabVIEW Application Builder Module

Issue Details

Why do my subVIs show up under My Computer and not under the Dependencies section of my LabVIEW project? Will my code run?

Solution

According to the Help for Dependencies: "You cannot add items directly to Dependencies. Dependencies updates automatically when you add, remove, or save an item in the project. For example, if you add a VI that includes a subVI to a target, LabVIEW adds the subVI to Dependencies. However, if you manually add the subVI under the target, the item does not appear under Dependencies." 

In addition, your code will run if your subVIs are under My Computer. This is the expected behavior if the subVI is created directly from the current project.

Additional Information

  • If you use something like the Call By Reference node, there's no explicit declaration that says "this is my subVI and I NEED this dependency to be included". A subVI wouldn't show up under Dependencies if it's used like this. 
  • When building the application, because there's nothing under the Dependencies, the LabVIEW Application Builder doesn't know which subVIs we need. That's why we have to explicitly include them in the 'Always Included' section of the Source Files; so that the EXE or Installer knows to include those subVIs in an installation on another machine.