Idless Journal Files

Journal files can also be created without reference to entity IDs. The purpose of this command is to enable journal files created in earlier versions of Coreform Cubit to be played back in newer versions of Coreform Cubit. Using the "IDless" method, commands entered with an entity ID will be journaled with an alternative way of referring to the entity. Changes in Coreform Cubit or ACIS often lead to changes in entity IDs. For example, a webcut may result in volume 3 on the left and volume 4 on the right. In another version of Coreform Cubit, those entity IDs may be swapped (4 on the left and 3 on the right). Playing an IDless journal file makes the actual ID of an entity irrelevant. The syntax for this command is:

[set] Journal IDless {on|off|reverse}

The on option will enable idless journaling, and commands will be journaled without entity IDs. For example, "mesh volume 1" may be journaled as "mesh volume at 3.42 5.66 6.32 ordinal 2".

Selecting the off option will cause commands to be journaled in the traditional manner (i.e., as they are entered).

The reverse option allows you to convert idless journal files back into an ID-based journal file where the new journal file will reflect current numbering standards for IDs.

If you issue the command Journal IDless without any additional options, then the current status of ID journaling is printed. At startup, this should be "off".

The most likely scenario for converting older journal is to use the record command during playback. The following is an example.

journal idless on
record "my_idless.jou"
playback "my_journal.jou"
record stop
journal idless off

To record an idless journal file back into an id-based journal file you might use the following sequence.

journal idless reverse
record "new_id_based.jou"
playback "my_idless.jou"
record stop
journal idless off

Note: IDless conversions of APREPRO expressions are partially supported.

When IDless mode is set to ON, APREPRO functions such as Vx(id), that take an ID as an argument, are converted to use (x, y, z, ord) as arguments such as Vx(x, y, z, ord), where (x, y, z) is the center point coordinates and ord is the ordinal value.  The ordinal values, 1..n, identifies each entity in a set of n entities that have a common center point.  An entity's ordinal value is based on its creation order with respect to the other entities within the same set.    

When IDless mode is set to REVERSE (using the above example) Vx(x, y, z, ord) will be converted to Vx(id). Outside these APREPRO functions, APREPRO expressions are not modified when converting a journal file to or from its IDless form.  Hence, expressions reduced to an entity ID, such as in the command "volume {x} size 10," are not modified.  Therefore, when moving a journal file from one version of Coreform Cubit to another, it may be necessary to manually update IDs in APREPRO expressions.