I guess the approach would something like this …

 Declare Function mdlSheetDef_getBorderAttachmentId _
    Lib "stdmdlbltin.dll" ( _
    ByVal sheetDefIn As Long , _
    ByRef borderAttachmentIdOut As DLong ) As Long

 Dim oSheetDefinition As SheetDefinition
 Set oSheetDefinition = ' ... get Sheet Def from somewhere
 Dim mdlSheetPointer As Long
 ' MDL pointer treated as Long in VBA
 mdlSheetPointer = oSheetDefinition.MdlSheetDef 
 Dim borderAttachmentID As DLong
 Const SUCCESS As Long = 0
 If SUCCESS = mdlSheetDef_getBorderAttachmentId ( _ 
       mdlSheetPointer, borderAttachmentID) Then
    Debug.Print "Sheet Border Attachment ID=" & _ 
       DLongToString (borderAttachmentID)
 Else
    MsgBox "MDL Function Call Failed"
 EndIf

Regards, Jon Summers
LA Solutions

If I set the border attachment to a reference file, your code returns success. With no border reference, it still returns success but the debug.print statement prints -1 as the ID

If I then try and use the initial values (when a border reference is assigned) to use the set function vs the get border attachment ID function, it still throws the same error.

Someone at Bentley clearly needs to research this and determine if there are other arguments or syntax for this to work.

P.S. I also read the Dlong ID value from both the Attached reference file and the SheetDefAttachmentID and the numbers are the same. That's a good thing.

Bump

We need assistance from a Bentley Colleague!

Hi caddcop,

what do you want to achieve? For an existing sheet to set existing attached reference to be a new border for this sheet?

Regards,

 Jan

The current InRoads sheet tools can make separate models with referenced in borders. But they are neither sheet models, nor therefore sheet border attachments.

So manually changing these is time consuming and often, the precess needs to be redone due to design changes.

The code I have will convert a model to a sheet but the mdl wraper function from the mdl documentation does not work and throw an error.

If the mdl function works, I need the correct wrapper function or an explanation as to what is not correct in my code.

Hi caddcop,

I wrote below code snippet to demonstrate mdlSheetDef_get[set]BorderAttachmentId functions.

    ElementID refId = INVALID_ELEMENTID;
    SheetDef* sheetDef = mdlSheetDef_new ();
    mdlModelRef_getSheetDef (ACTIVEMODEL, sheetDef);
    mdlSheetDef_getBorderAttachmentId (sheetDef, &refId);
    if (INVALID_ELEMENTID == refId || 0 == refId)
    {
        DgnModelRefP  modelRef;
        if (SUCCESS != mdlRefFile_attachCoincident (&modelRef, "d:\\atemp\\border_e.dgn", L"BORDER_E", NULL, REF_FILE_LEVEL_DISPLAY_DEFAULT, TRUE, TRUE))
        {
            mdlSheetDef_free (&sheetDef);
            return;
        }
        refId = mdlRefFile_attachmentIdFromModelRef (modelRef);
        mdlSheetDef_setBorderAttachmentId (sheetDef, refId);
        mdlModelRef_setSheetDef (ACTIVEMODEL, sheetDef);
        mdlSheetDef_free (&sheetDef);
    }

From it, we can use if (INVALID_ELEMENTID == refId || 0 == refId) to determine if a sheet model exists a border attachment.

For your VBA wrapper, the thread title asks setBorderAttachmentId but your first post shows getBorderAttachmentId wrapper. So I am not sure if you declare setBorderAttachmentId correctly. From VBA help, we can find following:

Declare Function mdlSheetDef_getBorderAttachmentId Lib "stdmdlbltin.dll"
(ByVal sheetDefIn As Long , ByRef borderAttachmentIdOut As DLong ) As Long
Declare Function mdlSheetDef_setBorderAttachmentId Lib "stdmdlbltin.dll"
(ByVal sheetDefIn As Long , ByVal borderAttachmentIdIn As DLong ) As Long

You can notice the different parameter declarations.

HTH, YongAn

Unknown said:

Declare Function mdlSheetDef_setBorderAttachmentId Lib "stdmdlbltin.dll"
(ByVal sheetDefIn As Long , ByVal borderAttachmentIdIn As DLong ) As Long

DLong is a VBA User Defined Type (UDT).  UDTs must be passed ByRef.  The MDL documentation for that VBA wrapper is incorrect.

Sorry, it's my fault (plus doc's fault).

In MDL side, mdlSheetDef_getBorderAttachmentId use ElementID * as its second parameter but mdlSheetDef_setBorderAttachmentId use ElementID as it. Using declaration ByVal borderAttachmentId As DLong is ok for  mdlSheetDef_getBorderAttachmentId but not ok for mdlSheetDef_setBorderAttachmentId.

I will investigate this interesting question further and find a Bentley expert to help.

YongAn

Unknown said:

It's my fault

It's not your fault.  This question has come up before.  The MDL document generator is an automatic process, that occasionally makes mistakes. 

You can't pass a UDT ByVal; it must be ByRef — that's the way VB/VBA works.  From the C programmer's viewpoint, ByRef means pointer.  I guess Microsoft decided that they wanted to eliminate the possibility of passing a potentially huge chunk of data on the stack (MDL does exactly the same thing — structs are always passed by address).  Both set and get functions must pass a UDT ByRef, even though the get function is not modifying the variable.

It's easy to test.  Write a couple of functions that take a Point3d.  Then see which compiles successfully …

 ' Point3d is a Bentley-defined User Defined Type (UDT)
 Sub TestUDT1 (ByVal p As Point3d)
    ' ...
 End Sub

 Sub TestUDT2 (ByRef p As Point3d)
    ' ...
 End Sub

 ' VBA's default calling convention is ByRef
 Sub TestUDT3 (p As Point3d)
    ' ...
 End Sub

Regards, Jon Summers
LA Solutions

Hi Jon,

I have a mistyping. I want to type

Using declaration ByRef borderAttachmentId As DLong is ok for  mdlSheetDef_getBorderAttachmentId because its second parameter's C declaration is ElementID * (a pointer to a structure. acutually ElementID is not a structure, it is just a base type __int64) but not ok for mdlSheetDef_setBorderAttachmentId because its second parameter's delcaration is ElementID.

Thank you, YongAn