FIELD OF THE INVENTION

[0002] The present invention relates to the field of computer programming, and more particularly to a system and method for automatically generating a program based on program information, wherein the automatically generated program includes a graphical user interface with user interface controls for specifying or viewing input or output parameter values to or from the program. One embodiment of the invention relates to the field of computer program prototyping, and more particularly, to the automatic generation of a computer program from a prototype.

DESCRIPTION OF THE RELATED ART

[0003] As software tools have matured and grown in popularity and complexity, it has become increasingly common for users to use software applications other than traditional application development environments to create a problem solution or design or model a computational process. For example, applications such as prototyping environments and test executives provide specialized environments enabling users to work at a higher level than a programming language does. However, there is often a tradeoff between ease-of-use and the ability to create customized solutions to a problem. For example, a user may desire the ability to enhance a solution with features that are not provided by the high level application used to create the solution. Also, it may be desirable to export the solution into other environments external to the application. Thus, in many cases it would be desirable to automatically generate a computer program which implements the solution. This would allow the user to customize the solution and integrate the solution with other applications or processes.

[0004] There are many examples of tools and applications from which it would be desirable to automatically generate a computer program. Generally, these tools and applications create information, e.g., in response to user input. When this information is used in automatically generating a computer program, the information may be referred to as, “program information”. The program information may comprise any type of information specifying functionality for the generated program.

[0005] One example of a tool which creates program information that can be used in automatically generating a program is referred to as a prototyping environment. A prototyping environment may be a specialized application for developing solutions to problems in a particular problem domain. The specialized application can provide an environment that is conducive to rapidly and conveniently prototyping a problem solution.

[0006] A prototyping environment may integrate various capabilities in order to aid developers of problem solutions, depending on the particular problem domain. For example, a prototyping environment may provide a library of operations that are specific to a problem domain and may enable a user to select and execute various operations from the library. The prototyping environment may include a graphical user interface that is streamlined for interactively experimenting with various parameters associated with the selected operations and seeing the effects of the adjusted parameters. A prototyping environment may also include capabilities for simulating real-world objects or processes. A prototyping environment may be used to create program information such as a recipe, solution, or script, also called a prototype, which represents an algorithm designed by the user in the prototyping environment.

[0007] Prototyping environments may be developed for many different problem domains. For example, a prototyping environment for image processing may enable a user to load or acquire an image and apply various image processing operations to the image, such as filtering operations, morphology operations, edge detection operations, etc. Such a prototyping environment may enable the user to build a script including various operations that are applied to images, e.g., for use in a machine vision, pattern matching, shape matching, or other imaging application. Other examples of prototyping environments include:

[0008] a sound processing environment for applying various audio operations to a sound clip, e.g., in order to analyze the sound clip, eliminate background noise, etc.

[0009] an instrumentation environment for interacting with hardware instruments, e.g., in order to initialize an instrument, acquire data from the instrument, analyze the acquired data, etc.

[0010] a circuit design environment for developing and testing circuit designs, e.g., for programmable logic devices

[0011] As described above, it may be desirable to automatically generate a computer program based on a prototype, e.g., to implement an algorithm or process specified by the prototype. In this case the program information comprises prototype information created by the prototyping environment.

[0012] Another example of a tool which may generate program information that can be used in automatically generating a program is referred to as a test executive. A test executive application allows users to organize and execute sequences of reusable test modules, e.g., to control a test involving one or more instruments. The test executive software operates as the control center for the automated test system. More specifically, the test executive software allows the user to create, configure, and/or control test sequence execution for various test applications, such as production and manufacturing test applications. Text executive software typically includes various features, such as test sequencing based on pass/fail results, logging of test results, and report generation, among others. Similarly as described above, in some cases it may be desirable to move the execution of the test sequence from under the control of the test executive software to an independent computer program. Thus, the test sequence information may be used as program information in automatically generating the program.

[0013] In other examples, program information may be created by any of various other types of tools or applications. Further examples of program information on which an automatically generated program may be based include: a state diagram; and an existing computer program (e.g., a program to be translated to a new language or environment).

[0014] In different cases, it may be desirable to automatically generate programs in various programming languages. For example, for the image and sound processing prototyping environment examples given above it may be desirable to generate programs in C/C++, Java, Basic, Fortran, or other high-level text-based programming languages, while for the circuit design prototyping environment it may be desirable to generate a program in VHDL or Verilog.

[0015] It may also be desirable to generate programs in a graphical programming language. Generating a graphical program may be especially useful for those users who are not familiar with traditional text-based programming languages, such as C/C++, Java, etc. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,901,221; 4,914,568; 5,291,587; 5,301,301; and 5,301,336; among others, to Kodosky et al disclose one embodiment of a graphical programming environment which enables a user to easily and intuitively model a process. The method disclosed in Kodosky et al allows a user to construct a block diagram using an editor. The block diagram may include interconnected graphical icons such that the block diagram created graphically displays a procedure or method for accomplishing a certain result. In response to the user constructing the block diagram, data structures or executable code that corresponds to the displayed procedure is automatically created. This graphical programming environment may be used for creating virtual instrumentation systems, industrial automation systems, modeling processes, and simulation, as well as for any type of general programming. Graphical programming environments such as the National Instruments LabVIEW product have become very popular. In particular, graphical programming tools are being used for test and measurement, data acquisition, process control, man machine interface (MMI), supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) applications, simulation, and machine vision applications, among others.

[0016] In many cases, when automatically generating a program based on program information, it would be desirable to enable the program to receive input and/or provide output. For example, in the case of a prototyping environment, various functions comprised in the prototype may have associated input and/or output parameters. The prototyping environment would typically have its own graphical user interface giving users the ability to easily adjust input/output parameters for prototype functions. It would be desirable to preserve this ability for an independent program. Thus it would be desirable to automatically create a graphical user interface (GUI) for the generated program, such that during program execution, users can specify input parameter values via user interface controls in the GUI and/or may view output parameter values via user interface controls.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

[0017] One embodiment of the present invention comprises a system and method for automatically (i.e., programmatically) generating a computer program based on program information, wherein the program includes a graphical user interface (GUI) for specifying input values to or viewing output values from the program. In various embodiments, the program information may comprise any type of information specifying functionality for the generated program. The program information may comprise information created by a software application. Examples of program information include: prototype information (e.g., created by a prototyping environment), test executive information (e.g., created by a test executive application), state diagram information (e.g., created by a state diagram editor), and an existing computer program (e.g., a program to be translated to another programming language or environment).

[0018] In one embodiment, the program information may comprise information specifying a prototype, and the system and method may automatically (i.e., programmatically) generate a computer program from the prototype, wherein the program includes a graphical user interface for specifying input parameter values to or viewing output parameter values from the program. By utilizing an application specialized for developing solutions to problems in a particular domain, i.e., a prototyping environment, a user may develop a solution to a problem, i.e., a prototype. The prototype may comprise a series of functional operations that form the problem solution. For example, an image processing prototyping environment may be utilized to create a series of image processing operations, e.g., to select a series or set of machine vision or image processing tools, that may be applied to an image in order to analyze the image, e.g., in order to count the number of objects of a certain shape which appear in the image.

[0019] For each functional operation of the prototype, one or more parameters may be associated with the operation. The associated parameters may include input and/or output parameters. An input parameter provides a value affecting the behavior of the operation, while an output parameter value is set by the operation. For each input parameter, the prototyping environment may enable the user to adjust the parameter value as desired, e.g., in order to experimentally see the effect of varying the parameter value. For each output parameter, the prototyping environment may be operable to display the output parameter value, once the operation has set the value. The prototyping environment may provide a graphical user interface for setting input parameter values and viewing output parameter values. As each operation is added to the prototype, input parameter values that the user has set for the operation may be associated with the operation. Parameters may have an associated data type, e.g., a simple type such as string, integer, floating point, Boolean, etc., or a complex type which is an aggregate of one or more simple types.

[0020] Once the user has developed the desired prototype, the user may request the prototyping environment to automatically (programmatically) generate a program implementing the prototype, e.g., in order to run the program independently of the prototyping environment. In various embodiments, the prototyping environment may be operable to generate programs in any of various programming languages, including text-based or graphical programming languages. The generated program may also be targeted toward a particular application development environment, e.g., to utilize proprietary features or to create files that are formatted in a manner expected by the application development environment.

[0021] In one embodiment, the prototyping environment is operable to display a list of parameters associated with the operations included in the prototype, in response to the user requesting the program to be generated. The user may select from the displayed list the input parameters which are desired to be interactively changeable. In response, the prototyping environment is operable to programmatically generate a graphical user interface for the program, wherein the graphical user interface may include a user interface control associated with each selected input parameter, or associated with groups of input parameters. Similarly, the user may select from the displayed list the output parameters which are desired to be interactively viewable, and the prototyping environment is operable to include a user interface control (in this case an indicator or display element) for viewing each selected output parameter value on the graphical user interface. The user interface control for a given input parameter is operable to receive user input, such as during program execution, and provide this input to the associated operation in the program. Similarly, the user interface control for a given output parameter is operable to receive output data from the program, such as during program execution, and display this output to the user.

[0022] It is noted that the displayed list of parameters may group one or more related parameter values into a single item. The user interface control associated with this item may include multiple portions or fields for setting each value. Thus, the term “user interface control” may refer to an aggregate of simpler user interface controls or user interface elements which together form a suitable means for receiving an input parameter value or displaying an output parameter value. As noted above, parameters may have associated data types, and these data types may be used to determine an appropriate user interface control to create for a given parameter.

[0023] Once the user has selected the desired parameters, the prototyping environment may programmatically generate the program and the graphical user interface (or may pass the prototype information to another program that performs the generation). For each input parameter that was selected, the portion of the program that receives the input parameter is generated so as to be operable to obtain the parameter value from the corresponding user interface control in the graphical user interface. Similarly, for each output parameter that was selected, the portion of the program that produces the output parameter is generated so as to be operable to set the value of the corresponding user interface control, in order to display the value in the graphical user interface. For each input parameter that is not selected by the user, the prototyping environment may hardcode a value for the parameter into the generated program. As noted above, when an operation is added to the prototype as the prototype is being created, input parameter values that the user has set for the operation may be associated with the operation. These values may be hardcoded into the program. In one embodiment, a selectable list of parameters is not displayed, and a user interface control for each parameter is automatically created, i.e., no parameter values are hardcoded into the program.

[0024] Thus, one embodiment of the present invention provides an improved system and method for automatically or programmatically generating a computer program from a prototype, wherein the program includes an improved graphical user interface. The graphical user interface of the automatically generated computer program may be used for specifying input parameter values to or viewing output parameter values from the program.

[0025] As noted above, in other embodiments, the program information upon which the programmatically generated program is based may comprise other types of information besides prototype information. Techniques similar to those described above may be used in programmatically generating a program based on the program information, such that the program includes a graphical user interface with user interface controls for specifying input values to or viewing output values from the program. For example, in a case where the program information specifies a test executive sequence, various steps in the test executive sequence may have associated parameters. Thus, when the program is generated, the user may be prompted to choose one or more of these parameters for which to generate user interface controls, similarly as described above.

[0026] In the examples given above, the user interface controls included in the program's GUI correspond in some respect to the program information used to generate the program. For example, in the prototyping environment example discussed above, the user interface controls included in the GUI correspond to parameters of functional operations specified by the prototype information. In other embodiments, an automatically generated program may include user interface controls in the program's GUI that do not strictly correspond to program information. For example, referring again to the test executive example, in addition to including user interface controls in the GUI for receiving/displaying values of parameters associated with steps of the test executive sequence, other user interface controls for other types of purposes may also be included in the generated GUI. For example, if desired, the GUI for the program may include user interface controls for turning result logging on or off, starting or stopping the test, etc. Thus, these user interface controls may be associated with additional functionality beyond what is specified by the program information itself. Thus, in various embodiments, when the user requests that the program be automatically generated, the user may be prompted for whether to include user interface controls in the GUI for any of various types of purposes (or the user interface controls may be included by default), and the automatically generated source code for the program may include code for implementing additional functionality associated with these user interface controls.