Select instances in the selection

[TNTDAVID]

**Hello everybody,

With the code below, it is possible to select an instance in SketchUp by ca definition.

m=Sketchup.active_model;s=m.selection;m.definitions.each{|d|s.add d.instances if d.name=~/#{"Handle"}/}

Is it possible to select the instances "Handle # 1", "Handle # 2", "Handle # 3" etc. which are only in the furniture being selected?

If so how do I do it?

Thank you in advance for your help.

David**

[Dan Rathbun]

There are some code examples here:

https://forums.sketchup.com/t/selecting-specific-entity-group-or-component-by-name/11469

These examples use the == but you can use regular expressions:
http://ruby-doc.org/core-2.0.0/Regexp.html

begins with: =~ /\A#{name}/

Or the specific string "Handle" at start of string followed by: an optional whitespace character, underscore or dash; followed by a literal pound sign (which I escape just in case);
followed by an optional whitespace character; followed by one or more digit characters; just before the end of the string:
=~ /\AHandle(\s|-|_)?\#\s?\d+\z/
... and to make it non-case insensitive we can add a "i" switch at the end outside the slashes:
=~ /\AHandle(\s|-|_)?\#\s?\d+\z/i

---

If you are using Ruby 2.0 or higher you can also use the String#start_with?() method:
http://ruby-doc.org/core-2.0.0/String.html#method-i-start_with-3F

inst.name.start_with?('Handle')
... or for case insensitive convert to a title:
inst.name.capitalize.start_with?('Handle')

[TNTDAVID]

**Thank you for all these Dan examples.

= ~ / # {"name"} /

It's perfect because it works for all instances.

Now, I only want to select the instances present in a selection of components.

The problem is that the code below, selects all the instances in the SketchUp file.

m=Sketchup.active_model;s=m.selection;m.definitions.each{|d|s.add d.instances if d.name=~/#{"Handle"}/}

Thank you**

[Dan Rathbun]

@tntdavid said:

Now, I only want to select the instances present in a selection of components.

Then use the grep method that TIG showed you to collect all instances in the selection set.
http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=68172&p=626519#p626479

Then build an array of definitions for those instances.

Then unique the array so that each definition reference appears only once in the array. (Or use a set.)

(And read the several examples in the SketchUp forum thread I pointed to above.)

@dan rathbun said:

There are some code examples here:
https://forums.sketchup.com/t/selecting-specific-entity-group-or-component-by-name/11469

[TNTDAVID]

Thank you Dan.
I will analyze all your information in detail.