topic Re: Where used? in 3D Part & Assembly Design

Where used?

sloman — Fri, 04 May 2018 19:58:40 GMT

Is there a way to see in which assembly’s a part is being used?I have creo parametric 2.0. I don’t seem to have PDM link what is explained in the question of Mike Minsterketter.

Re: Where used?

JonathanHodgson — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 15:04:11 GMT

Hi Stefan,

I've written a batch file to do this. It's a little slow and sometimes returns false positives, but it works.

The key lines are:

for /r . %%9 in (.) do findstr /m /i "%1" %%9\*.asm.* >> \whereused_%1.txt

start notepad \whereused_%1.txt

I've named it whereused.bat, and it is saved in the root directory of our Pro/E data drive (Z:).

To use it we call up a command prompt and type e.g.:

cd \

whereused 12345

Re: Where used?

sloman — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 09:51:57 GMT

Thanks Jonathan!

I followed your instructions and it works!

Strange that it is not possible to have a standard option in Creo for "where used". But your batch file is a good alternative.

Stefan

Re: Where used?

Dale_Rosema — Tue, 31 Mar 2015 15:11:26 GMT

Can you help me a little with the batch file, JONATHAN Hodgson?

It this something that is like an old Dos program?

Thanks, Dale

Re: Where used?

KenFarley — Tue, 31 Mar 2015 15:33:36 GMT

This implies that part names are stored in assemblies as text strings. Something I didn't know but will hereafter exploit. Nice.

Re: Where used?

JonathanHodgson — Tue, 31 Mar 2015 16:16:27 GMT

Hi Dale,

Yes, it is indeed effectively a DOS BATch script (only I think they're called "command scripts" these days).

Basically you just create a text file (Notepad works fine) containing those lines, but with a .bat extension instead of .txt - so "whereused.bat". You could also add @echo off as the first line - echo off stops it displaying (echoing) each command it executes to the screen, and the @ stops it echoing the echo off!

Then call up a command prompt and run it as I describe above.

"for /r . %%9 in (.)": recurse (/r) through all directories starting from the current one (.) and output the directory name to %%9

"do findstr /m /i "%1" %%9\*.asm.*": look for the string "%1" (which is the part number you typed after whereused) in *.asm.* in each directory %%9, not case sensitive (/i), outputting just the filename(s) where the string was found (/m)

">> \whereused_%1.txt": and append that filename to the end of a file in the root directory of the current drive called "whereused_%1.txt"

"start notepad \whereused_%1.txt": finally, open the file in Notepad

You can get help on most commands by typing them followed by /? at a command prompt:

for /?

findstr /?

or there are several webpages around devoted to the arcana of batch file language.

Re: Where used?

Dale_Rosema — Tue, 31 Mar 2015 18:56:45 GMT

Maybe I am not getting the spacing quite right:

whereused.bat

Re: Where used?

JonathanHodgson — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 07:54:56 GMT

Yep, more spaces required - and as a single line. Copy and paste:

@echo off

for /r . %%9 in (.) do findstr /m /i "%1" %%9\*.asm.* >> \whereused_%1.txt

start notepad \whereused_%1.txt

Re: Where used?

Dale_Rosema — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 11:20:38 GMT

It looks like it is running, but this is the new message:

It did open up a notepad file.

Re: Where used?

JonathanHodgson — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 11:24:35 GMT

Do you have permissions to create a file in G:\ ?

If not, you'll have to create the text file somewhere else - try C:\whereused... in both occurrences.

Re: Where used?

Dale_Rosema — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 11:37:04 GMT

Putting it to a sub directory on the local hard drive worked. It might have been messed up with that whole DOS cannot have directories longer that 8 characters thing.

Thanks,

Re: Where used?

Dale_Rosema — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 12:02:38 GMT

From the run:

G:\Engineering\PROE_DATA\A_A_Proengineer\.\1013_6100.asm.5

G:\Engineering\PROE_DATA\A_A_Proengineer\.\1019_1000.asm.167

G:\Engineering\PROE_DATA\A_A_Proengineer\.\1019_1000.asm.168

G:\Engineering\PROE_DATA\A_A_Proengineer\.\1019_1000.asm.169

G:\Engineering\PROE_DATA\A_A_Proengineer\.\1019_1000.asm.170

G:\Engineering\PROE_DATA\A_A_Proengineer\.\1048_2000.asm.133

G:\Engineering\PROE_DATA\A_A_Proengineer\.\1048_2000.asm.134

G:\Engineering\PROE_DATA\A_A_Proengineer\.\1048_2000.asm.135

G:\Engineering\PROE_DATA\A_A_Proengineer\.\1048_2000.asm.136

G:\Engineering\PROE_DATA\A_A_Proengineer\.\1053_7000.asm.5

G:\Engineering\PROE_DATA\A_A_Proengineer\.\1111_9000.asm.8

G:\Engineering\PROE_DATA\A_A_Proengineer\.\1113_9000.asm.358

G:\Engineering\PROE_DATA\A_A_Proengineer\.\1113_9000.asm.359

G:\Engineering\PROE_DATA\A_A_Proengineer\.\1113_9000.asm.360

G:\Engineering\PROE_DATA\A_A_Proengineer\.\1113_9000.asm.361

G:\Engineering\PROE_DATA\A_A_Proengineer\.\1179_0000.asm.45

G:\Engineering\PROE_DATA\A_A_Proengineer\.\1179_0000.asm.46

G:\Engineering\PROE_DATA\A_A_Proengineer\.\1179_0000.asm.47

G:\Engineering\PROE_DATA\A_A_Proengineer\.\1179_0000.asm.48

G:\Engineering\PROE_DATA\A_A_Proengineer\.\1183_7000.asm.26

G:\Engineering\PROE_DATA\A_A_Proengineer\.\1183_7000.asm.27

G:\Engineering\PROE_DATA\A_A_Proengineer\.\1183_7000.asm.28

G:\Engineering\PROE_DATA\A_A_Proengineer\.\1183_7000.asm.29

G:\Engineering\PROE_DATA\A_A_Proengineer\.\300752ctn.asm.6

G:\Engineering\PROE_DATA\A_A_Proengineer\.\300752ctn.asm.7

Thanks again,

(and by the way, don't forget to close out of the systems window)

Dale

Re: Where used?

Dale_Rosema — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 12:23:11 GMT

One other quick question. If it returns a notepad file that is empty, does that imply that the file is not used anywhere?

Re: Where used?

BillChapman — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 13:03:25 GMT

Will this "where used" work for family table instances?

Re: Where used?

Dale_Rosema — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 13:06:12 GMT

That is why I am using it. My predecessors didn't do a good job of house keeping, so I have a lot of dead instances. So far it is working really well for finding where these instances are or are not used.

Re: Where used?

BillChapman — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 13:17:53 GMT

Where do I download this? It sounds very useful!

Re: Where used?

dschenken — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 13:36:52 GMT

FAT16 file systems are limited to 8 characters.The interface you are using isn't DOS, but CMD. Most likely there is a permissions setting to keep you from creating files at the top level of G:,

Re: Where used?

JonathanHodgson — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 13:51:50 GMT

Hi Bill,

Just paste the three lines I provided above (starting @echo off) into Notepad, then save the file as "whereused.bat".

That's it - no download! Because many email systems, and I'm guessing some virus checkers, are fussy about .bat files, it's easier to create it yourself than do through the trouble of renaming the file, uploading it and explaining to people how to rename it back...

Re: Where used?

JonathanHodgson — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 13:53:06 GMT

Presumably! Provided without warranty so if you lose data on the back of this, it's not my responsibility...

Re: Where used?

Dale_Rosema — Thu, 02 Apr 2015 14:19:37 GMT

JONATHAN Hodgson

I just wanted to say "THANK YOU!!!" for this where used .bat program. It has made a ton of difference in house keeping. When I came to an old model before, if I didn't feel like playing Sherlock Holmes, I would just move on. Now I can run the program 3-5 times. Once each for the parent model and some of the components in that model and I find out they are all related, from a project 15 years ago that never took off, that was left like debris on the tarmac.