How to create multiple groups by material name using PCL?

Question

Arthur Hickson · Accepted Answer

Use the shareware utility, but I assume you want this as pure PCL (not interactive) so you will need to find all the material IDs so something like this may guide you:

INTEGER nmats

INTEGER imats(virtual)

STRING mats[32](virtual)

INTEGER status,i

INTEGER i_id, i_cat, i_lin, i_dir, i_type

db_count_materials(nmats)

sys_allocate_array(imats,1,nmats)

sys_allocate_array(mats,1,nmats)

$ Get all the all the material names from the database

$ uses a looping while .... get_next... structure

status = db_get_all_material_names ( )

if (status != 0 ) THEN return

$ Get all material information from the database

$ only keep the mat name and id

i=0

WHILE ( status == 0 )

i+=1

status=db_get_next_material_name(mats(i), i_id, i_cat, i_lin, i_dir, i_type )

$ Get material ID from name

status = db_get_material_id_from_name (mats(i), imats(i))

END WHILE

$call the shareware PCL function to make the groups

au_create_group_by_material.main2( nmats, mats, TRUE, "All", "", 0, @

["empty"], "Multiple Groups", "", "type", "matl." )