Starting Lisp

[fuccaro]

I try to write a program in VBA, but I see now that I could use some routines I wrote previously in AutoLisp.
First question: Is there a way to start a Lisp routine from VBA?
Second: Is there a way to start a Lisp from VBA and after the Lisp finishes, to return to VBA?
Third: How to start a Lisp from VBA and the lisp returns a real number in VBA that is used in calculations.

Or maybe I should rewrite all the Lisp code to have everything in VBA?

[Kerry Brown]

Did you know that VBA is being removed from AutoCAD ?

[fuccaro]

That is not a problem for me! I still use AutoCAD 2006 and from what I can see, "they" will not upgrade us during this life time. We use Catia now and AutoCAD is kept just for maintaining the old projects. I write programs just for my own pleasure -and to help myself and my colleagues in the daily routines.
Thank you for answering me!

[fuccaro]

Can anybody help me with this?

[MSasu]

To call an AutoLISP routine in VBA will have to use the SendCommand statement (don’t forget to add a final space = <ENTER>):

ThisDrawing.SendCommand "(load " & chr(34) & "MyLispFile" & chr(34) & ")(MyRoutine) "

Unfortunately there is no way (or at least I wasn’t able to find one) to see from VBA when the AutoLISP interpreter is done, so the VBA code is not waiting for that processing to get done.
I was tempted in the past to use your proposed approach but finally got to translate my AutoLISP to VBA.

Regards,

[MSasu]

How to start a Lisp from VBA and the lisp returns a real number in VBA that is used in calculations.

The first solution to communicate between AutoLISP and VBA is to use the USER*1-5 system variables:

(setvar "USERS1" "Hello World!")
thisDrawing.GetVariable "USERS1"

Second, may use a temporarily file to communicate between languages.

Third, may check the solution proposed here.

Regards,

[fuccaro]

Many thanks msasu!
I will try it these days. The Userr1 sounds good to me. Also I think to clear the Users1, start the lisp routine and wait in a loop until Users1 changes. After that the vba code may continue to run.
Thanks again!

[MSasu]

You’re welcome!

Also I think to clear the Users1, start the lisp routine and wait in a loop until Users1 changes. After that the vba code may continue to run.

This sound very promising! I have to make some tests, also. Thank you!

Regards,

[MSasu]

Since just found that this may be interesting for other too, I want to confirm that the above proposed validation solution works.

[Bill Tillman]

A project I'm working on starts out with VBA and then launches AutoCAD and runs a LISP program. The easiest way I have found to get data between the two languages is to use temporary text files. I use them profusely and the process works well.