Solved Stop automatic rename of objects script.py

Hi There,

yes there might be some or more users what do like the automatic rename, but on the other hand there are still users that like it to have the structure clean instead.
Do you know if there is already a script done by someone what deletes every text starting from .1, .2, .3 and so on to clean it up a bit or does anybody know how to script this?

Thank you very much for your help!

Best Regards,
Peter and Michael

To change the name of all the scene objects, you have to iterate over all the objects. You can do that recursively or non-recursively.

For the given object, you can simply check if the name has a "." and get the substring before that dot.

# get name
name = op.GetName()

# find last ".""
pos = name.rfind(".")
if pos != -1:
    
    # get substring
    name = name[0:pos]
     
    print(name)
    op.SetName(name)
    c4d.EventAdd()

But this will change the name of all objects that have a "." in the name. A more advanced version of this would check if the part right of "." is actually a number.

Hi @peXel, thanks for reaching out us.

With regard to your request, following-up with the suggestion from @PluginStudent (kudos dude) I warmly recommend to read BaseList2D and GeListNode to get familiar with the concepts needed to properly traverse the scene and manage the information found belonging to the encountered objects.

If there are no further questions, please remember to set the Thread to Solved.

Best, R!

Hi There,

Sorry I was off for a while (...)
Thanks @PluginStudent for this, but it does not solve the problem sadly.
It does just rename one object. What I am looking for is to rename all objects at all, no matter if .1 .2 .3 or what else .xxx
Just to get things more clean again. I am not a programmer, so I can't do any real scripting sadly

Thank you very much

Best,
Peter

Hi Peter, see if the code below can temporary solve your issue.

import c4d

def Rename (op):
    # check for op being valid
    if op is None:
        return
    
    # get the name
    name = op.GetName()
    
    # find last ".""
    pos = name.rfind(".")
    if pos != -1:
        # get substring
        name = name[0:pos]
    
    # remove the additional "."
    name = name.replace(".", "_")
    
    # set the name
    op.SetName(name)

    # iterate over the child
    if op.GetDown() is not None:
        Rename(op.GetDown())
        
    # iterate over the sibling
    if op.GetNext() is not None:
        Rename(op.GetNext())

# Main function
def main():
    # retrieve the first item in the Object Manager and pass it to Rename
    Rename(doc.GetFirstObject())
    
    # notify Cinema 
    c4d.EventAdd()

# Execute main()
if __name__=='__main__':
    main()

The code above is just a draft example on how you can get it done but it should be on you to adapt it to your specific needs. Using a code without any grain of salt can be dangerous and error prone and it should also be noted that we're here to support rather than to provide solution.

I again iterate the suggestion to have a look to BaseList2D and GeListNode to get familiar with the concepts needed to properly traverse the scene and manage the information found belonging to the encountered objects and also, in your case, to Python tutorials for beginners.

Finally, if no further help is needed, remember to mark the thread as "SOLVED".

Best, R

Hi,

I know that regular expressions are a somewhat sensitive topic and can be overwhelming for beginners. But since the string shuffling shown here will produce produce false positives (e.g. "foo.bar"), I feel this is more than a question of "this is bad style and could lead to problems" and therefor should not be encouraged. Here is a regex you should use instead:

import re

# The regex to strip numeric affixes.
RE_STRIP_NUMERIC_AFFIX = re.compile("(^\\S+)(\\.)(\\d+$)")

# A little function that uses the regex.
def strip_numeric_affix(item):
    """
    """
    match = RE_STRIP_NUMERIC_AFFIX.match(item)
    return match.group(1) if match else item

# -- Test our regex ---------------------------------------------------------

data = [
    # Valid candidates
    "foo.324",
    "foo_bar.1",
    "foo.bar.1",
    # Invalid candidates
    ".1",
    "foo.bar",
    "foo_bar.1 bar"
]

for item in data:
    print "original: ", item
    print "stripped: ", strip_numeric_affix(item), "\n"
original:  foo.324
stripped:  foo 

original:  foo_bar.1
stripped:  foo_bar 

original:  foo.bar.1
stripped:  foo.bar 

original:  .1
stripped:  .1 

original:  foo.bar
stripped:  foo.bar 

original:  foo_bar.1 bar
stripped:  foo_bar.1 bar 
[Finished in 0.1s]

Cheers,
zipit

MAXON SDK Specialist
developers.maxon.net

Speaking of regular expressions, I find it often useful to utilize the "raw" notation for strings to avoid double-escape character sequences, which can add another layer of confusion:

RE_STRIP_NUMERIC_AFFIX = re.compile(r"(^\S+)(\.)(\d+$)")

@Cairyn

Noooooo, you have to make them as cryptic as possible ;) Jokes aside, you are absolutely right, this is adviseable.

Cheers,
zipit

MAXON SDK Specialist
developers.maxon.net

PERFECT! Thank you very much. It's really a great helper. Back to good old times :-)

Best,
Peter

Might it be possible to get the script ass well working within our material manager? The new automatic rename of our materials drives me crazy sadly. If that might bepossible it would be so great and a good addition to R25...

Best Regards,
Peter

Hey @peXel,

I am not 100% sure what you mean by "our" material manger, but I assume you just want to strip all numeric postfixes from materials in the material manger? You must iterate over them just like shown by @r_gigante. See snippet at the end for details.

Cheers,
Ferdinand

The result:
mats.gif
The code:

import c4d
import re

# The regex to strip numeric affixes.
RE_STRIP_NUMERIC_AFFIX = re.compile("(^\\S+)(\\.)(\\d+$)")

def strip_rename_numeric_affix(node):
    """A little function that uses the regex to rename a node.
    """
    name = node.GetName()
    match = RE_STRIP_NUMERIC_AFFIX.match(name)
    new_name = match.group(1) if match else name
    return node.SetName(new_name) == None if new_name != name else False


def main():
    """Iterates over all materials and prints the result.
    """
    material, results = doc.GetFirstMaterial(), []

    while isinstance(material, c4d.BaseMaterial):
        results.append(strip_rename_numeric_affix(material))
        material = material.GetNext()
    c4d.EventAdd()

    print (f"Changed the name of {sum(results)} materials.")


# Execute main()
if __name__=='__main__':
    main()

MAXON SDK Specialist
developers.maxon.net

Oh my god, thank you!!! Now material exchange does work properly again.
Without this, it's just a mess to get rid of all .1, .2, .3, before I could execute the mat exchange.
What a great helper, should be integrated really...

Thank you very much and have a nice day