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