Delete a userprop

[Anonymous]

Is there a method to delete a user property? Without having to parse and edit the userPropBuffer directly?

Thanks,
Ben

[Anonymous]

Not directly (without userpropbuffer) or the helpfile is lacking some documentation, but why would you want to delete it? Wouldn't assigning undefined or NULL to it work?

-Johan

[Anonymous]

Why would I want to delete it? I think it'd be responsible that, if a script could make a new user prop, it should also be able to remove one.

If I setUserProp to undefined, then I end up getting the string "undefined" from getUserProp. Note, it's the string, not "undefined" the object.

For example:

1. start a new max file, make a dummy node, select it.
In MaxScript Listener:
2. getUserProp $selection "myProp" (returns undefined)
3. setUserProp $selection "myProp" 12345
4. getUserProp $selection "myProp" (returns 12345)
5. setUserProp $selection "myProp" undefined
6. getUserProp $selection "myProp" (returns "undefined", a string, not undefined)

[Anonymous]

I do understand it returns the undefined as string... I was merely trying to add some suggestions to the lacking support of deleting userprops... so you could filter on "undefined" or "NULL"...

If you really want them destroyed you should use userpropbuffer and do some string functions, wouldn't be too hard, but I agree it's not a simple clean solution.

-Johan

[Anonymous]

On a related topic, I have a script that was making 20-25 userprop calls per object, and it took forever to run. I recently redesigned it to read in the entire buffer, do all of my edits in a stringStream mode, then write the buffer back out. It took my total script execution time from about 5 minutes down to 20 seconds or so... The getUserProp and setUserProp functions are really expensive in my experience.

Oh, and for some reason, when creating the userProp buffer, you need to use "\r\n" at the end of each line, whereas "\n" is all that's needed for nearly any other multi-line string.

[danlane3d]

Do you still need this? 😄
deleteUserProp <node> <key_string>

[denisT.MaxDoctor]

I think that, after almost 20 years, this property—if it hasn’t already managed to delete itself—has long since lost any value. 😅 👍