topic Re: Getting the Story Index Number in Libraries & objects

Getting the Story Index Number

TomWaltz — Mon, 21 Jun 2004 12:56:47 GMT

I am trying to make Zones that are sensitve the the story they are placed on (for use in modules placed on multiple floors), and I am having trouble figuring out how to get the Index Number of the story.

I found the reference for

REQUEST  ("Story", "", index, story_name)

in the GDL reference manual, but I'm not really sure what to do with it from there.

I tried using the index in the context of

Zname = index + Zname

, but Archicad gives me an error "Unused function return value."

Can anyone shed some light on this for me?

Thanks!

Re: Getting the Story Index Number

TomWaltz — Mon, 21 Jun 2004 13:08:54 GMT

sorry, that should have been

ROOM_NUMBER = sindex + ROOM_NUMBER

not zname.

Re: Getting the Story Index Number

Anonymous — Mon, 21 Jun 2004 14:12:30 GMT

Tom,

For some reason you always have to set a variable equal to the Request function, i.e.:

story_ID_OK = REQUEST  ("Story", "", story_index, story_name)

Otherwise you get the error message. It actually does not interfere with the function of the part. The error only shows up when you check scripts.

Generally I think the return value is 1, 0, or -1 depending on the Request function. I have rarely (if ever) used this value so I generally just put a dummy variable in to make the error go away.

The variable story_index will contain the number of the story but this may not match the story structure of your building. You may need an adjustment parameter for those cases.

Re: Getting the Story Index Number

TomWaltz — Mon, 21 Jun 2004 18:26:18 GMT

That was it.

Here is how it ended up:

story_ID_OK = REQUEST  ("Story", "", story_index, story_name)
! adjust +1 for Euro-style flr numbers
IF story_index < 0 THEN
	Fix_Val = 0
ELSE
	Fix_Val = 1
ENDIF 
ROOM_NUMBER = STR (story_index+Fix_Val,1,0) + ROOM_NUMBER

Re: Getting the Story Index Number

Laszlo Nagy — Tue, 22 Jun 2004 09:00:10 GMT

I think the reason you have to assign the return value of a REQUEST function to a variable is so that you are able to evaluate whether the REQUEST function was successful or not. If there was some error, the REQUEST function will return the value -1. Otherwise it will return the number of values filled into the variables named in the REQUEST function (this number can be different with each different REQUEST function).
This way of operation may be useful for debugging your GDL code.
Laszlo