AutoCAD Civil 3D

[#1]

I am trying to modify the default description for pipe labels in PartBuilder to read as 4" DIA PVC instead of 4 inch PVC Pipe. I am having trouble getting the " to display, if I use two ' a space away from the diameter it will work, but if the two ' are next to the diameter or if I use " it will not work with the code. Any help is appreciated.

[#2]

I was exactly where you are several weeks ago. The " (quote) mark is used as part of the formatting/syntax in creating the XML file that stores the part definition and, from what I experienced, can't be used in the part name. I used two apostrophes and it worked fine.

[#3]

The interesting thing about it is that it interprets the two apostrophes as a quote if it is next to the PID code, to get it to work, I had to add a space between the code and the two apostrophes. Is this your experience also?

[#4]

Hmmm, you're right. It doesn't work in the partbuilder. I must have fixed it when I was editing the XML file directly. The partbuilder doesn't let you edit the format of the part size name directly. Instead, the editor interprets what you enter into a format. You have to edit the XML in order to create the format you want.

Add the space and the two apostrophes in the partbuilder and save the part. Now edit the XML file to remove the space. The file name is AeccCircularPvcPipe_Imperial.xml, and the area you want is on the fourth line up from the bottom.


Funny thing: Open the part in the partbuilder and it reads the new format fine even though it can't create it.

[#5]

That worked great, but why???? I imagine if I were to edit the xml directly without any editing from partbuilder it would corrupt the file... Thanks for the help, I appreciated it!

[#6]

Not really sure why other than it seems like the partbuilder is trying to keep the user out of trouble by interpreting the entries to build a valid XML format. I also assume that the partbuilder is undocumented because it isn't very user friendly and is bound to spawn a lot of questions. (not to even mention the amount of damage one could do with it)

I don't know much about XML at all so I've kept my manual editing to a minimum. The only other manual edit I did was to edit and increase the available pipe materials list. The AeccSharedPropertyLists.xml file holds the basic materials list and it's quite easy to pick up on the format you need to follow.

[#7]

Did anyone try using \" or " at all? XML reads " as quotation marks, but I don't know how the part builder reads the xml (I would hope it reads it like any other standard xml capable application) Message was edited by: AdammR

[#8]

Thanks for the suggestions, but neither helped through part builder, and when I edited the XML directly, \" showed the code not the result and " corrupted the file. Maybe this is a different flavor of XML? Part builder does some weird things and seems to be very temperamental.