Select all comps if contain name

[CadFather]

if this code gets all comps named 'arete'

Sketchup.active_model.selection.add( Sketchup.active_model.definitions['Arete'].instances )

how can i select ALL the comps that may contain it as well? (like Arete_1, Arete_2 etc)

[TIG]

m=Sketchup.active_model;e=m.active_entities;s=m.selection;s.clear;a=[]; m.definitions.to_a.select{|d|d.name=~/[Aa]rete/}.each{|d|d.instances.each{|i|a<<i if i.parent.entities==e}};s.add(a)if a[0]

It clears the selection first, then because it could select instances across context boundaries, thereby causing splatting issues, I use the array ' a' to select only those instances in the model.active_entities !
The pattern-matching =~/[Aa]rete/ matches upper and lower case A, to limit it to just what's at the start use =~/^[Aa]rete/, to the end =~/[Aa]rete$/, to allow for ê or one other letter, use =~/[Aa]r.te/, or perhaps =~/[Aa]r[eê]te/

[CadFather]

Wow, super comprehensive, TIG - thank you.

are you also saying that i should not be selecting comps inside other groups etc?

suppose you wanted to swap an instance with another, across the whole model. are you risking bugsplats?

[TIG]

Don't select anything unless you want to do something like Move/Copy...
You could make a transient selection to swap definitions etc, but it is a spalt-danger...
BUT if you want to simply get a 'collection' of all instances - e.g. to swap them - use this:

m=Sketchup.active_model;a=[];m.definitions.to_a.select{|d|d.name=~/[Aa]rete/}.each{|d|a<<d.instances};a.flatten!;a.compact!;a

The variable ' a' is an array containing all of the matching instances, irrespective of their context.
Note how you need to flatten to merge the instances arrays, and on the safe-side compact to remove any nil values...

[CadFather]

brilliant, does more than i asked! need to study it a bit now (tax return can wait...)

Thanks