Iterate through ALL External References

G'Day guys,

I'm making a macro that needs to access all xrefs in a drawing, both in ModelSpace and PaperSpace. At the moment, my code to do this is as below:

Dim objEnt as AcadEntity
Dim objRef as AcadExternalReference

For Each objEnt in ThisDrawing.ModelSpace
If TypeOf objEnt Is AcadExternalReference Then

'Work on the xref

End If
Next objEnt

For Each objEnt in ThisDrawing.PaperSpace
If TypeOf objEnt Is AcadExternalReference Then

'Work on the xref

End If
Next objEnt

Question: Is there a better way to grab and work on each xref? I don't like repeating my code, and I figure that grabbing every object in the drawing is overkill, when I'm only interested in Xrefs.

Thanks,
Mick.

 

Get the block insertions in a Selection Set, then determine if the insert is
and Xref....

Sub xrefWork()
Dim objSS As AcadSelectionSet
Dim objSSets As AcadSelectionSets
Dim objBlk As AcadBlockReference
Dim iType(0) As Integer
Dim vData(0) As Variant
Set objSSets = ThisDrawing.SelectionSets
On Error Resume Next
objSSets.Item("XREFS").Delete
On Error GoTo 0
Set objSS = objSSets.Add("XREFS")
iType(0) = 0
vData(0) = "INSERT"
objSS.Select acSelectionSetAll, filtertype:=iType, filterdata:=vData
For Each objBlk In objSS
If TypeOf objBlk Is AcadExternalReference Then
'Do your work on the xref here
End If
Next objBlk
End Sub

Jeff

ModelSpace and PaperSpace. At the moment, my code to do this is as below:

like repeating my code, and I figure that grabbing every object in the
drawing is overkill, when I'm only interested in Xrefs.

 

Well, he didn't ask for nested xrefs. He specifically stated that he was
working with xrefs inserted in Modelspace and Paperspace.

However, to be more specific and to list ALL xrefs, including nested, you
could use this:
Dim blk As AcadBlock
For Each blk In ThisDrawing.Blocks
If blk.IsXRef = True Then Debug.Print blk.Name
Next

but you still need the inserts to obtain the path information, which means
for nested xrefs you will still need to iterate through every object in the
xref database.

Jeff

BTW, Matt, could you please set your newsreader to post in plain text? Your
html posts are overly large for a 1 sentence post (your reply added 6k to my
reply which was only 2k) and there are still some newsreaders that don't
read html. Thanks.

 

Be warned ! Iterating thru all xrefs and nested xrefs
(and their nested xrefs...and) this way, can be painfully slow !

 

The Blocks property of the AcadDocument class returns a collection of
AcadBlockDefinition objects.

Each of those objects has an .IsXref property which returns true if the
block definition is an external reference.

You could traverse the blocks collection, testing that property. If you
get a positive response, you can append the name of the block to a
comma-delimited string.

Once done, create a filtered selection set and you'll have every
instance of an external reference inside a single selection set object,
making it very easy to traverse and query your xrefs.

 

Hi Matt,
Actually it's best to at least leave a portion of the message you are
responding to so that someone reading your message can see what you are
responding to.....especially since not all messages get 'synched' between
servers.

As for a 'couple of K', it's not that it bugs me it's a sum of the
following:
1. Internet newsgroup etiquette has always asked that messages be plain text
(do a Google search if you doubt this)
2. not everyone has DSL or Cable access. Just this group alone in the last
week has generated 300+ posts, of which more than 90% were made in plain
text. Now if everyone hade made these posts in html, and IF the average
increase per post were 6K, that would've increased the total download for
all of these messages by 1.6 megs. Now taking this further, if there are an
average of 30 people that download all messages each week, that means that
the adesk server needs to provide an EXTRA 48 megs of bandwidth, just for
ONE group that is by far not the even one of the most used groups. This also
increases the storage space that ADESK must provide which leads to
"newsgroup maintenance" days where older messages are deleted to make room
for the new ones. So I think of it as more of a courtesy to others, AND
yourself, than anything else.
3. As I said before, not all newsreaders handle html posts. And even those
that do have an option to turn of html in meassages to avoid
virus/ad-ware/spy-ware from inflicting their crud their computers.
5. I just remembered that this has all been brought to your attention before
<*shrug*>, oh well.....

Just tryin' to help on my little ol' modem that has a hard time connecting
at 33k or above,
Jeff

 

Depending on the type of drawing, there is a high probability
that the number of blocks in the drawing is many times more
than the number of layers.

This means that iterating thru the layers to get the xrefs block name
should be much faster.

Also, it seems to me, that using a selection set on an nested Xref
will not yield any insertions for the current drawing.

 

You could always compare the various collection
counts and then branch to the faster algor.

2¢

 

Yes, that is a good idea !

--
Saludos, Ing. Jorge Jimenez, SICAD S.A., Costa Rica

 

Crikey! You take an extra long weekend, and when you get back, posts have sprouted like mushrooms!

You're right Jeff. I'm not after any nested xrefs. You're code works a treat.

Much appreciated,
Mick.