User Defined Program

I have been working on a layer utility for our whole office to use which switches quickly between different layer configurations (i.e. we stack our floor plans and I have it set up that the keyboard command "1" shows the first floor, "2" shows the second, etc.) I am adding dialog functionality to the program and would like to give users the ability to create there own layer state shortcuts.

My questions is, How can I have my program create a second program using and user supplied variable as the name of the function and ultimately the command that they would type.

Ex: (defun c:{insert here user supplied name from dialog} (/)...

 

Are you trying to 'write' a Lisp file..to be loaded later ?
If so, why not (setq out (strcat "(defun c:" user_var " ( / )"))
where, 'user_var' is just a string from Dialog , then, write-line out out-file..
Bob

 

thanks for the quick response

hmm... I think write-line would work but it seems like a work around. Yes, I could have my program write the new program to a new file then load the file at the end of the original progragm but I was hoping there was a a way to do something similar with a strcat call but I wouldn't have to outsource it to a separate file.

 

I think you 'do' have to outsource it. Since it lives in Lisp,
(ascii text file), you can 'load' it, but you cannot (on the fly),
'define' it..if you know what I mean.
You could always 'dos-delete' it once loaded, if that is
where you are going..
Bob

 

I do something similar to automatically generate functions for inserting blocks.

I have a library utility for inserting a block with an optional rotation prompt, which has the syntax (insc <blockname> <scalefactor> <r-prompt>) for example (insc "door" 1 t). Then I have a macro-writing function as follows:

(defun writemacro (blknam rotation / macroname)
(setq macroname (strcat "c:" blknam))
(eval (read (strcat
"(defun "
macroname
"()(insc \""
blknam
"\" 1 "
(if rotation
"t"
"nil")
"))"))))

(Note that this assumes a unit insertion scale.) For example, if called by (writemacro "door" t) it will create a function of the form (defun c: door () (insc "door" 1 t)).

I use this to automatically generate large numbers of macros, whereby you can insert a block by typing its name. You can build a list of filenames in a folder, for instance, and apply the macro-writing function on all the names.

 

sweet. thanks.