ChristinaSeay Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 Hey guys, I'm not sure if there is a way to do this, but I'm trying to create an automation program that runs "-eattext" from the command line and I've ran into a few problems with this: When I get to the part on the command line where I enter the filepaths separated by a comma (-eattext, selectdwg, enter filepaths)... the command line has a limit on the number of characters it can accept (typically amounts to about 6 files) before it won't take any more. When you run the dialog box, it can do waaay more than this. Also, not really a problem, but would be nice. When you run the dialog box, and you get to the screen where it displays your output... there is a button for "alternate view" This view is soooo much easier to work with, but I can't get this view via the command line as far as I can tell. Also, the templates that it uses... those .blk templates... work great if I know every block I'm going to encounter, but not if I'm trying to find a specific few blocks. They pick up every block that I haven't explicitly told it that I don't want when I made the template. Does anyone have any suggestions on what I can do here?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CmdrDuh Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 well, how many blocks are you talking about? Are they consistent with regard to tag names? If it were me, I would use VBA and do the same thing your trying to do, without having to deal with any dialog boxes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChristinaSeay Posted April 3, 2009 Author Share Posted April 3, 2009 Yeah, they are consistent with regards to names. I'm dealing with upwards of 50+ files in some cases with literally hundreds of a blocks in each file that I need to read. There are 10 or less actual block names to deal with, but multiple instances of each block name. I'm trying to find any way that is efficient to get specific block attribute data out of specific blocks in the files... preferably without having to open them if I can. I'm open to any suggestion that will help me do this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CmdrDuh Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 Well, objectdbx can (i think) do what you want without having to open the files, I however dont know to do it. VBA can defenitly do it, and I can help you with that. You could use the eattext method, but its harder IMO to maintain and use. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CmdrDuh Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 post a dwg file with the blocks in it, and give a list of what you want to extract as an example, and I will work something up for you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChristinaSeay Posted April 4, 2009 Author Share Posted April 4, 2009 Thank-You so much for offering to help. I can't post a drawing file though.. everything we do is confidential and it's all kinds of red tape and release forms to share our drawings. I'll try to explain what I'm doing though, and maybe you can at least point me in the right direction. I'm basically needing to read blocks out of a drawing file. We use "Start" blocks for our drawing borders. There can be several of these in one drawing file. I've seen some of them that has 20 and 30 in one file. So anywhere from 1 to 30 "sheets" in one drawing. Everyone here uses block religiously in their drawings, so one drawing may easily have 100s of blocks in it. But I'm just looking for a few specific blocks so I can determine information about a sheet. First I need the "Start" borders, which act as our drawing sheets. I need the "title", "sheet #", x and y insertion points, and the scale of the block. Then I need to read x and y insertion points on 3 other blocks ("MachinePrint", "FieldPrint", "BuildAHead"). I'll be using the insertion points to compare against the information from the "Start" borders to determine what sheet these blocks are on if they exist in the drawing. Then I need to read x and y insertion points, "PartNo", "Link" out of 3 other blocks. ("BlnAssyR", "BlnAssyL", "BlnLink") I'll be doing the same thing with these to determine what sheet they're on, but I'll also be comparing these against a parts list to determine what sheet has the part I'm needing to find. I hope that makes sense... I know it's hard to grasp without being able to see the drawing. I've tried "eattext" and explained the problems I had there. I also tried "attext" and the problem I ran into with it was that it won't pick up "MachinePrint", "FieldPrint", and "BuildAHead" blocks because they dont' have attributes, and it requires at least one attribute. I'm attempting objectdbx, but I can't get it to connect to the object. Probably something stupid that I'm doing there.. but I haven't figured out what yet. It seems as though there should be a way to do this without opening the drawing since "eattext" can do it, so the capability to get that information is there... somewhere... lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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