Content Center Table Math?

[Matthew_Policelli]

I can't seem to find anything anywhere on this subject, but I am wondering if there is a way to do mathematical functions in the content center family table? Or conditional statements?

Something along the lines of:

• Column C = Column A + Column B
• If Column A = <value> And Column B = <value>, then column C = "TRUE", Else "FALSE"
• Column B = Round(Column A)

Is anything like this possible?

[gregory_nickol]

It must have been possible in the past to do mathematical operations. This is a family that's been copied from a stock library and has been around for years. The values show blue as being expression generated, yet the expression shows up red/invalid. If you try to use the same format on your own entry, it'll be red and won't let you click OK to accept the expression. It'd be nice if Autodesk could chime in on how to do this or why it seems like it was built in the past to work that way but doesn't anymore.

For your specific case, assuming you don't intend to make large, frequent changes to your family table, I would get the preliminary stuff set up, then open it in excel and put formulas in to calculate the values, then do a copy and special paste to paste values only.

[jtylerbc · Accepted solution]

Click "Edit Via Spreadsheet", then do your math in Excel.

As far as I'm aware, the Expressions in Content Center families have never been able to do math.  They are for building combined properties, similar to iProperty expressions (for example, a Description that includes dimensions pulled from other columns in the table).  They aren't the same thing as parameter equations in a part file.

I'm not sure the example expression shown by @gregory_nickol would ever have actually worked.  I would guess that it is left over from a failed attempt, and the actual math was done through Excel or some other method.

[andrewiv]

I'm going to add this in case anyone comes across this topic in the future looking for the answer.  You absolutely can do math in the content center table but it has to be set up correctly.  The data type must be real and it has to have a units value.  And just like in parameters you have to make sure that your units come out correctly.  So if you multiply two column values together and they are both inches then your formula units have to be in^2. 

In the example given above, the reason it is red is because the units are empty.  If you would enter in^3 in the units then it would let you click OK.  And because in^3 is not available from the drop down list it will reset to nothing every time you edit the column properties so you will have to re-enter it every time you want to make a change.

Here is an example where I'm taking a value (PL) in inches and rounding it to the nearest hundredth of an inch.