Generative Drafting

Updating all Sheets of all Drawing Documents of a Given Folder

This macro shows you how to update sheets in Drawing documents.

This macro retrieves all the drawing documents in a given folder, and loops on these documents to open them, update all their DrawingSheet objects, save and close them.

CAADriUpdateSheets is launched in CATIA [1]. No open document is needed.

CAADriUpdateSheets.CATScript is located in the CAADriUseCases module.  Execute macro (Windows only).

CAADriUpdateSheets includes five steps:

1. Prolog
2. Creating a File System Object to Handle the Folder
3. Retrieving the Folder
4. Looping on the Drawing Documents to Update Their Sheets
5. Saving and Closing the Documents

Prolog

  ...
  ' Set the CATIA popup file alerts to False
  ' It prevents to stop the macro at each alert during its execution
  CATIA.DisplayFileAlerts = False
  ...

The CATIA prompts are disabled thanks to the DisplayFileAlerts property of the Application object set to False.

Creating a File System Object to Handle the Folder

  ...
  ' Set the file system object containing the folder
  Dim fileSys As FileSystem
  Set fileSys = CATIA.FileSystem 
  ...

The FileSystem property of the Application object returns a portable object between Windows and Unix. Thanks to this object, a folder and its files and subfolders can be retrieved.

Retrieving the Folder

...
    ' Define the path's folder where we are looking for Drawing documents
    Dim sFolderPath As String
    sFolderPath = InputBox( "Enter a folder path:", "Update All Sheets Of a Folder" ,_
                            sDocPath & "\online\CAAScdDriUseCases\samples")
    If (Not oFileSys.FolderExists(sFolderPath)) Then
      Err.Raise 9999,,sFolderPath & ": This Folder does not exist"
    End If

    ' Set the folder object
    Dim oFolder As Folder 
    Set oFolder = oFileSys.GetFolder(sFolderPath) 
  ...

The folder is retrieved in folder from the fileSys object using the GetFolder method to which the folder name sFolderPath is given. sFolderPath is initialized to a documentation folder using an environment variable and a confirmation is requested using the InputBox function. The FolderExists method of the FileSystem object is then used to check the existence of this folder.

Looping on the Drawing Documents to Update Their Sheets

...
     ' Loop on the files collection of the folder
    ' For Each File In Folder.Files
    Dim iI, iJ
    For iI = 1 To oFolder.Files.Count
        Dim oFile As Object
        Set oFile = oFolder.Files.Item(iI)
    
        '  Retrieve in the files collection only the Drawing documents from its extension
        If InStr(oFile.Name, ".CATDrawing") <> 0 Then

            ' Set and open a Drawing document
            Dim oDoc As Document 
            Set oDoc = CATIA.Documents.Open(oFile.Path)
            MsgBox "Updating Document " & oFile.Path, 0  ' VBOKOnly

            ' Loop on the sheets collection of the drawing document
            ' For Each sheet In oDoc.Sheets 
            For iJ = 1 To oDoc.Sheets.Count
                ' Update the sheet even is not necessary
                oDoc.Sheets.Item(iJ).ForceUpdate 
            Next
  ...

To retrieve each file of the folder, a For ... To ... Next loop uses the iI variable that ranges from 1 to the number of files in the folder returned by the Count property of the collection of files. The collection is retrieved thanks to the Files property of the Folder object. The Item method of this collection enables you to retrieve the iI^th file in the collection handled using the oFile variable. Then, using the InStr function, each file name is checked for the ".CATDrawing" extension before being opened thanks to the Open method of the Documents collection to which the file pathname is passed using the Path property of the File object. A For Each ... In ... Next embedded loop onto the sheets of the Drawing document uses the Sheets property of such as document to retrieve each sheet. The ForceUpdate method of the Sheet object updates the sheet, even if updating the sheet is not needed.

Saving and Closing the Documents

...
            ' Save the Drawing document
            ' oDoc.Save
            ' Close the Drawing document
            oDoc.Close
        End If

    Next

End Sub

When all the sheets are processed, the drawing document is successively saved and closed thanks to the Save and Close methods of the Document object. The use of Save method is here commented to avoid access right problems to the documentation files.