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CI/CD Examples — LabVIEW Docker Container Automation with GitHub Actions

Automate LabVIEW headless builds, MassCompile, VI Analyzer, and other LabVIEWCLI operations in CI/CD pipelines using LabVIEW Docker containers.

This document describes the example LabVIEW CICD workflows and helper scripts included in this repository. These examples demonstrate how to integrate LabVIEW container images into automated pipelines using GitHub Actions (and GitLab CI/CD).

Directory Structure

All CI/CD example resources live under examples/cicd-examples/:

examples/cicd-examples/
├── helper-scripts/
│   ├── masscompile/
│   │   ├── masscompile.sh
│   │   └── masscompile.ps1
│   ├── run-vi-analyzer/
│   │   ├── run-vi-analyzer.sh
│   │   └── run-vi-analyzer.ps1
│   └── vidiff/
│       ├── vidiff.sh
│       └── vidiff.ps1
└── Test-VIs/
    ├── ArthOps.vi
    ├── BeepWrapper.vi
    ├── CreateNewProj.vi
    ├── WriteToRandomFile.vi
    └── via-configs/
        ├── via-config-pass.viancfg
        └── via-config-fail.viancfg

Test-VIs

The Test-VIs/ folder contains a set of sample LabVIEW VIs used as targets for the CI/CD examples. These VIs are intentionally simple and are designed to exercise the MassCompile and VI Analyzer operations in the pipeline. The via-configs/ subfolder holds the VI Analyzer configuration files that define which tests to run against the Test-VIs.

Examples

1. MassCompile

Compiles all VIs in a target directory using LabVIEWCLI's MassCompile operation. This validates that VIs can be loaded and compiled without errors inside the LabVIEW Docker container — a key step in any LabVIEW automated builds pipeline.

Workflow files:

Platform Workflow
Linux masscompile-linux-container.yml
Windows masscompile-windows-container.yml

These workflows run the MassCompile command inline — no helper script is needed.

Helper scripts (optional, for standalone use):

  1. Script: masscompile.sh (Linux / Bash)

    • Link: helper-scripts/masscompile/masscompile.sh
    • Runs LabVIEWCLI -OperationName MassCompile against the Test-VIs directory.
    • Configures the LabVIEW path and year via the LV_YEAR environment variable.
    • Exits with the LabVIEWCLI exit code.

  2. Script: masscompile.ps1 (Windows / PowerShell)

    • Link: helper-scripts/masscompile/masscompile.ps1
    • Accepts a -WorkspaceRoot parameter to locate the Test-VIs directory.
    • Runs LabVIEWCLI -OperationName MassCompile with -Headless mode.
    • Exits with the LabVIEWCLI exit code.

2. Run VI Analyzer

Runs static code analysis on the Test-VIs using LabVIEWCLI's RunVIAnalyzer operation with a VI Analyzer configuration file. The workflow invokes a helper script that handles parsing the results and failing the pipeline if any tests fail — enabling LabVIEW automation of code quality checks.

Workflow files:

Platform Workflow
Linux run-vi-analyzer-linux-container.yml
Windows run-vi-analyzer-windows-container.yml

These workflows call the helper scripts below inside the container.

Helper scripts:

  1. Script: run-vi-analyzer.sh (Linux / Bash)

    • Link: helper-scripts/run-vi-analyzer/run-vi-analyzer.sh
    • Validates that the VI Analyzer configuration file exists.
    • Runs LabVIEWCLI -OperationName RunVIAnalyzer with the pass-case config.
    • Parses the results report and extracts the failed test count.
    • Exits with code 1 if any tests failed, 0 if all passed.

  2. Script: run-vi-analyzer.ps1 (Windows / PowerShell)

    • Link: helper-scripts/run-vi-analyzer/run-vi-analyzer.ps1
    • Accepts a -WorkspaceRoot parameter.
    • Validates that the VI Analyzer configuration file exists and creates the report directory if needed.
    • Runs LabVIEWCLI -OperationName RunVIAnalyzer with the pass-case config.
    • Parses the results report using regex to extract the failed test count.
    • Exits with code 1 if any tests failed, 0 if all passed.

3. VIDiff (CreateComparisonReport)

Generates an HTML diff report comparing the base (main) and PR versions of each changed VI using LabVIEWCLI's CreateComparisonReport operation. The workflow automatically detects .vi files that changed in a pull request, runs the diff inside a LabVIEW container, publishes the reports to GitHub Pages, and posts a comment on the PR with links to each report.

Workflow files:

Platform Workflow
Linux vidiff-linux-container.yml
Windows vidiff-windows-container.yml

These workflows:

  1. Detect .vi files changed in the PR.
  2. Check out both the PR and base branch versions.
  3. Run the helper script inside the container to generate HTML diff reports.
  4. Deploy reports to GitHub Pages under /vidiff/pr-<number>/<platform>/.
  5. Post a comment on the PR with links to each individual report.

Helper scripts:

  1. Script: vidiff.sh (Linux / Bash)

    • Link: helper-scripts/vidiff/vidiff.sh
    • Accepts workspace-relative paths to changed .vi files as arguments.
    • Compares each VI's base version (/workspace-base/) against the PR version (/workspace/).
    • Runs LabVIEWCLI -OperationName CreateComparisonReport with -ReportType html.
    • Skips new or deleted VIs gracefully.
    • Outputs reports to /workspace/vidiff-reports/.

  2. Script: vidiff.ps1 (Windows / PowerShell)

    • Link: helper-scripts/vidiff/vidiff.ps1
    • Accepts -WorkspaceRoot, -WorkspaceBaseRoot, and -VIFiles parameters.
    • Compares each VI's base version against the PR version.
    • Runs LabVIEWCLI -OperationName CreateComparisonReport with -ReportType html.
    • Skips new or deleted VIs gracefully.
    • Outputs reports to $WorkspaceRoot\vidiff-reports\.

Note: The VIDiff workflows require GitHub Pages to be enabled on your repository. The first run will automatically create the gh-pages branch.

Try It Yourself

All workflows are configured to trigger on pull request events (opened, synchronized, reopened). To see the CI/CD examples in action:

  1. Fork this repository or create a branch.
  2. Modify any VI file in the Test-VIs/ folder (e.g., open a VI in LabVIEW, make a small change, and save).
  3. Raise a Pull Request against this repository.
  4. The GitHub Actions workflows will automatically run MassCompile, VI Analyzer, and VIDiff against the modified VIs.
  5. Check the Actions tab on the PR to view the pipeline results.
  6. For VIDiff, check the PR comments for links to the HTML diff reports on GitHub Pages.

See Also