topic Re: Using a List That Contains Variables in Visual LISP, AutoLISP and General Customization Forum

Using a List That Contains Variables

mgorecki — Wed, 21 Aug 2019 21:49:11 GMT

Ok I want to set up some layers in a new drawing. Depending on the number of layers chosen, the bottom layer will have a different name.

(Ex: for a 2 layer design the bottom layer will be "Lay_02", or a 4 layer the bottom layer will be "Lay_04".)

I can use strcat to create the name easily enough, but then I want to pass it to a function. Since the name could be different each time, I stored the name in a variable like "botLayName". That gets added to a list that contains layer name and color.

Ex: ((topLayName "100") (secondLayName "32") (botLayName "3") )

I want to pass that list to a function and as it goes through the list it creates the layer and assigns it's color.

The trouble is, the layer name it gets is "botLayName" and not "Lay_04".

Is there a way to send the variables to a function and get the value from the variable and not just the variable name?

Maybe I'm doing it completely wrong in the first place, if there are better ideas, feel free to share.

Thanks,

Mark

Re: Using a List That Contains Variables

dlanorh — Wed, 21 Aug 2019 22:56:58 GMT

@mgorecki wrote:
Ok I want to set up some layers in a new drawing. Depending on the number of layers chosen, the bottom layer will have a different name.
(Ex: for a 2 layer design the bottom layer will be "Lay_02", or a 4 layer the bottom layer will be "Lay_04".)
I can use strcat to create the name easily enough, but then I want to pass it to a function. Since the name could be different each time, I stored the name in a variable like "botLayName". That gets added to a list that contains layer name and color.
Ex: ((topLayName "100") (secondLayName "32") (botLayName "3") )
I want to pass that list to a function and as it goes through the list it creates the layer and assigns it's color.
The trouble is, the layer name it gets is "botLayName" and not "Lay_04".
Is there a way to send the variables to a function and get the value from the variable and not just the variable name?
Maybe I'm doing it completely wrong in the first place, if there are better ideas, feel free to share.
Thanks,
Mark

You need to construct the list using the list function and the cons function

(setq lyr_name "my-layer-name"
      lyr_col 100
)

(setq lst (cons (list lyr_name lyr_col) lst)); list ==> (("my-layer-name" 100))

Then pass the list to the functiion. In the function check if layer exists and if not make it

(foreach x lst
  (if (not (tblsearch "layer" (car x)))
    (command "-layer" "_M" (car x) "_C" (cadr x) "")
  );end_if
);end_foreach

Re: Using a List That Contains Variables

martti.halminen — Thu, 22 Aug 2019 08:39:34 GMT

Use the function VL-SYMBOL-NAME to find the value bound to the variable.

Re: Using a List That Contains Variables

martti.halminen — Thu, 22 Aug 2019 08:43:58 GMT

Sorry, a mixup in the previous. VL-SYMBOL-VALUE works better...

Re: Using a List That Contains Variables

mgorecki — Thu, 22 Aug 2019 14:19:27 GMT

Thank you very much. That did the trick.