Create an anonymous group from Visual LISP with help from ARX

By Gopinath Taget

The following ARX code does that. You need to however register the ARX function using acedDefun() to be able to use it as an external Lisp function.  It is implemented such that it returns a list, containing the new group’s ObjectID, to the external Lisp function.

The ARX function:

int acdbAddAnonGrpRet2Lsp()    {     // TODO: Implement the command     resbuf *pArg =acedGetArgs ();          struct resbuf *startRb = NULL;      AcDbGroup *pGroup = new AcDbGroup();      AcDbObjectId grpId;      AcDbDictionary *pGroupDict;      Acad::ErrorStatus es;      AcApDocument *curDoc;           //get the group dictionary      AcDbDatabase *pDb = acdbHostApplicationServices()->      workingDatabase();      if (Acad::eOk == (es = acDocManager->lockDocument(      curDoc=acDocManager->curDocument())))       es = pDb->getGroupDictionary(pGroupDict,AcDb::kForWrite);           if (es != Acad::eOk)       return es;                //make an anonymous entry      if ((es = pGroupDict->setAt(L"*", pGroup, grpId)) ==       Acad::eOk) {       //retrieve its name char *pNam;       pGroup->close();      }           // create a resbuf with our ObjectID in it      struct resbuf *newRb = acutBuildList (RTLONG, grpId, RTNONE);      // if ok      if (newRb != NULL) {       // if this is the first time we've done this       if (startRb == NULL) {        // then set this as the start        startRb = newRb;       }       // otherwise add it to the end of our list       else {        // create a pointer to the beginning of our resbuf list        struct resbuf *ptr = startRb;        // find the end of our list        while (ptr->rbnext != NULL)         ptr = ptr->rbnext;        // now attach our newly create resbuf to the end        ptr->rbnext = newRb;       }      }           pGroupDict->close();      acDocManager->unlockDocument(curDoc);           acedRetList(startRb);      acutRelRb(startRb);     return (RTNORM);    }

The Lisp code:

 

(defun isAppLoaded (app)

   (if (not (member app (arx)))

      (setq bAppLoaded :vlax-false)

      (setq bAppLoaded :vlax-true)

   )

   bAppLoaded

)

 

(defun Example_AddLightWeightPolyline()

   (vl-load-com)

   (if (= (isAppLoaded "asdkanonygrplsp.arx") :vlax-false)

      (arxload (findfile "asdkanonygrplsp.arx"))

   )

 

 

   (setq oAcad (vlax-get-acad-object)

           oDoc (vla-get-activedocument oAcad)

           *ModelSpace* (vla-get-ModelSpace oDoc)

   )

 

 

   ;;Add anonymous group

   (setq myGroup (vl-catch-all-apply

                              ‘vla-objectidtoobject

                              (list

                                 oDoc

                                 (vlax-make-variant

                               (car (acdbAddAnonGrpRet2Lsp))

                                    vlax-vbLong

                                 )

                              )

                           )

   ) ;setq

 

 

   ;;If error encountered making group, then exit

   (if (vl-catch-all-error-p myGroup)

      (princ (vl-catch-all-error-message myGroup))

      ;;otherwise continue…

      (progn

         ;; Define the 2D polyline points

         (setq pt1 (list 1.0 1.0)

                 pt2 (list 1.0 2.0)

                 pt3 (list 2.0 2.0)

                 pt4 (list 3.0 2.0)

                 pt5 (list 4.0 4.0)

         )

     (setq Points (apply ‘append (list pt1 pt2 pt3 pt4 pt5)))

         (setq ptlstlen (length Points))

 

 

         ;; Make array of 5*2=10 doubles –

     ;; that’s an array of dimension 0 to 9

         (setq PointDataA (

        vlax-make-safearray vlax-vbDouble (

                      cons 0 (1- ptlstlen))))

         (vlax-safearray-fill PointDataA Points)

         (setq PointData (vlax-make-variant PointDataA))

 

 

      ;; Create a light weight Polyline object in model space

         (setq myLWpoly (

        vla-addLightweightPolyline *ModelSpace* PointData))

 

 

         ;; Make array of 1 object (the new LWPolyline)

   (setq myObjA (vlax-make-safearray vlax-vbObject ‘(0 . 0)))

         (vlax-safearray-put-element myObjA 0 myLWpoly)

 

 

         ;; Add the LWPolyline to the group

         (vla-appenditems myGroup myObjA)

      ) ;progn

   ) ;if

   (princ)

)

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