LISP Routine for Changing Text Dimensions by X amount (VBA?)

We have a standalone program for the steel industry that creates DXF files
to use in ACAD. The dimensions shown are in dtext (which we prefer). Many
times we have changes that are by an "x" amount each time. So if you have 20
dimensions that have to be changed by 5'-2 each time, you are changing each
one at the time. Another added wrinkle is that the font be used with it is a
custom font that has sixteenths mapped in (I.e. %%131=1/16, %%%132=1/8,
etc.). I have searched for a routine that would allow be to enter in the
amount I want to change the dimension and it would rewrite the dim (text)
for me in the new value. Assuming there isn't already a routine out there
for something like this, what text searching tools does VBA/LISP have in
analyzing a string? I know that in VB there are some.

Does anyone have any suggestions or starting points?

David Nelms

 

Hi David,

There are some Autolisp functions like WCMATCH and VLISP functions like
VL-STRING-POSITION that you can use to check for the characters. I found
them under the "Autolisp Reference" in the help files. You may have to do a
search on "wcmatch" and "vl-string" to see what's available.

To do what you want to do, try breaking it into functions that correspond to
the steps you would take. The tasks might look like the following, though
the order may not be the same:

Input the value that you want to add to the text
Convert the value to a decimal number (call it *XBase* for example)
Select the text object or objects that you want to add the value to
set up a loop to iterate through each text object
get the text string from the text object
convert the characters in the string to fractional values that Autocad can
understand as numbers
convert the text value to a decimal number
add the numeric value and the *XBase* value to get the new text value to
be used
convert the decimal text value back to a string
substitute the special characters for any fractions that were present
update the text object with the new string
(next text object...)

Hope this was a helpful starting point. If you need any help, you know
where to reach me..

-Rick Francken