Modifying Handle Entities?

[krkiss]

Hello,

Does anyone know if it is possible to modify/control handle entities?

I am trying to streamline the process of our monthly office floorplan updates. I’ve set up AutoCAD to export attributes to Excel including the first name, last name, and phone number of each office occupant. We have approximately 50 floors and each floor has its own CAD file. I would like to have the data for all employees, from all floors floors, in the same excel file; however this creates a problem because handle entities can duplicate between files. I would appreciate any suggestions to work around this.

Thanks

[dgorsman]

"Handle" is a property of an entity, not an entity itself (those are lines, circles, block references, and so on).  These are internally managed and can have complex relationships with other data in the drawing so they cannot be modified.  If you want a unique reference then you will likely need to check the drawing filename and path along with the handle to guarantee a unique relationship.  There's a few other ways which are slightly more complex, each assigning an externally guaranteed unique ID to the objects, either as another attribute (only applies to block references), or using XDATA or an extension dictionary with XRecords (applicable to all entities).

[krkiss]

Thank you for the quick response!

In regards to checking the drawing filename and path along with the handle, is there a way to set AutoCAD up to do this when it exports attributes?

As well, would you please be able to walk me through how to assign an externally guaranteed unique ID to a block using an attribute and have it export to excel?

Thanks again

[dgorsman · Accepted solution]

I don't use the data extraction so I'm not certain if the drawing filename and path are available and non-attribute entities or not.  If not, you might need to add an invisible attribute or two containing fields which reference the required information.

As for the unique ID, thats pretty easy.  Add an invisible attribute to each block to be tracked so it will export along with the rest of them.  Create a system for generating your unique IDs to suit your needs.  For example it could be a simple tracking list with the next highest integer available (1, 2, 3, etc.), or a couple of fields consisting of the full path and file name and handle, or you could programmatically generate a GUID (Globally Unique ID) which are designed to be unique.