topic Re: [SOLVED] Parameters in Archicad C++ API

[SOLVED] Parameters

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Aug 2023 11:38:04 GMT

Could i get parameters using ACAPI_Element_Select.
F.e. get parameters from selected object and use these parameters for other object. I need hight, width, lenght, and position, probably sym_pos, or is there other way to get position?

I hope this makes sense.

Re: Parameters

Ralph Wessel — Fri, 20 Feb 2015 11:46:57 GMT

New wrote:
Could i get parameters using ACAPI_Element_Select.
F.e. get parameters from selected object and use these parameters for other object. I need hight, width, lenght, and position, probably sym_pos, or is there other way to get position?

ACAPI_Element_Select gives you a list of indices to the selected elements. To retrieve the parameters from one of those indices, look at APIAny_OpenParametersID and APIAny_GetActParametersID. This will give you access to all the parameter including the A, B, and zzyzx, but that isn't necessarily the actual bounding size. It would be easier to use APIDb_CalcBoundsID for that purpose.

The parameters do not contain the object position. You need to retrieve the other element settings through ACAPI_Element_Get. For an ordinary object, e.g. not a door/window, the 2D position is API_ObjectType.pos

Re: Parameters

Anonymous — Fri, 20 Feb 2015 12:14:22 GMT

Thanks for help Ralph.

Will try to make it work.

Re: Parameters

Anonymous — Tue, 03 Mar 2015 14:21:06 GMT

Haven't figured out how to get rest of the parameters, did get a and b.

API_AddParType and call parameter index ? or i could call by parameter name ?

Re: Parameters

Anonymous — Thu, 05 Mar 2015 07:51:17 GMT

As i understand getParams.params is a list of all the rest parameters how do i choose one of them ?

I belive this would be right approach but not sure how to go further...

    BNZeroMemory (&getParams, sizeof (API_GetParamsType));  
         err = ACAPI_Goodies (APIAny_GetActParametersID, &getParams, NULL);  
         if (err == NoError)  
         {  
            BNZeroMemory (&element, sizeof (API_Element));  
            BNZeroMemory (&memo, sizeof (API_ElementMemo));  
            element.header.typeID = API_ObjectID;  
            element.header.index = selectedInd;  
	    ACAPI_ELEMENT_MASK_CLEAR (mask);  
            memo.params = getParams.params;

Re: Parameters

Ralph Wessel — Thu, 05 Mar 2015 10:15:47 GMT

New wrote:
As i understand getParams.params is a list of all the rest parameters how do i choose one of them ?

If you look at the structure of API_GetParamsType, you will see the the params member declared like this:

	API_AddParType					**params;

This means that params is a handle, or a pointer to a pointer. You could get the first parameter by simply dereferencing the handle twice, e.g.

API_AddParType firstParameter = **getParams.params;

But what you really want to do is access all the values. The easiest approach is to dereference the handle once and then treat the resulting pointer as an array, so the first parameter could also be expressed like this:

API_AddParType firstParameter = (*getParams.params)[0];

The nth parameter could be accessed like this:

API_AddParType nthParameter = (*getParams.params);

To determine how many parameters the handle contains, you want to divide the total amount of memory allocated to the handle by the size of a single parameter:

GSSize parameterCount = BMGetHandleSize(getParams.params) / sizeof(API_AddParType);

Re: Parameters

Anonymous — Thu, 05 Mar 2015 10:22:16 GMT

Big thanks Ralph!!!

I think i got it now, thanks.
Will get right on it

Re: [SOLVED] Parameters

Anonymous — Mon, 19 Nov 2018 23:26:46 GMT

Ralph wrote:
GSSize parameterCount = BMGetHandleSize(getParams.params) / sizeof(API_AddParType);

I have tried this part and got error:
API_AddParType is not valid with GS::GSConstHandle

Why ?

Re: [SOLVED] Parameters

Ralph Wessel — Tue, 20 Nov 2018 08:54:37 GMT

kzaremba wrote:
Ralph wrote:
GSSize parameterCount = BMGetHandleSize(getParams.params) / sizeof(API_AddParType);
I have tried this part and got error:
API_AddParType is not valid with GS::GSConstHandle

The compiler only sees 2 different types that have no defined conversion. In this case we know they are actually the same thing, so the simplest solution (given that this part of the API is C) is to use a C-style cast:

GSSize parameterCount = BMGetHandleSize((GS::GSConstHandle) getParams.params) / sizeof(API_AddParType);

I wouldn't recommend that approach for C++, but the technique still exists for bridging to C in situations like this.

Re: [SOLVED] Parameters

Anonymous — Tue, 20 Nov 2018 20:59:52 GMT

Ralph wrote:
C in situations

I see mysteries of C... Thanks a lot it's working!

Why it used to work without casting before ?

Re: [SOLVED] Parameters

Ralph Wessel — Wed, 21 Nov 2018 10:13:22 GMT

kzaremba wrote:
Why it used to work without casting before ?

It didn't necessarily – I may have written that straight into the forum rather than a copy/paste from code. Can't be sure because C++ and the API are both constantly evolving, and old code won't necessarily compile in the future.

Re: [SOLVED] Parameters

Anonymous — Thu, 22 Nov 2018 18:48:50 GMT

Ralph wrote:
Can't be sure because C++ and the API

So true

Anyway, I have put it inside a class and suddenly it's starting to crash again. I'm not sure why. Is putting it to the class changes handle somehow?

Re: [SOLVED] Parameters

Ralph Wessel — Thu, 22 Nov 2018 19:29:13 GMT

No, we've wrapped the whole API in classes without problems.

Re: [SOLVED] Parameters

Anonymous — Thu, 22 Nov 2018 22:03:36 GMT

Thanks Ralph. You made me double check and I forgot to initialize getParam in the constructor. Now it's working.