Is "model().find" a heavy (computational) code?

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Lucas Klein asked May 11, '18 Matthew Gillespie commented May 15, '19

Is "model().find" a heavy (computational) code?

How much could the use of the code "model().find" impact in the model performance?

My question is if this code works the same way that a "For" code does, or if it works somehow else lighter. Case it does not, there is another code that could be used instead, looking for improve the code performance?

Software Version:

FlexSim 18.1.1

coding loop performance for

5 |100000

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Answer 1 · 2018-05-11T16:31:16Z

Matt Long answered May 11, '18 Matthew Gillespie commented May 15, '19

The find method does involve multiple steps in order to locate the desired node. It does checking for special characters like @, ~, .., +, /, >, ?, LAST etc. It then starts with the top container and loops through the subnodes to find the object with the specified name. If there are additional levels to the find, ie model().find("VisualTool1/Processor1"), then it will continue looping through the next container until it locates the next object.

If you're worried about speed and you're using the find command with static names ie model().find("Processor1"), you have a few different options to increase the speed (listed in order of speed):

Global Variables: Create a global variable for your object. You can then reference that object with the global variable name anywhere in code or a picklist.
Port Connections: Connect objects up using port connections then reference objects by rank. current.centerObjects[1]
Labels: Labels on objects, items or tokens can store references to other objects. To access the object use dot syntax, current.MyObject or token.MyObject

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Albert L commented · May 15, 2019 at 06:57 PM

Hi Matt,

Do you have the comprehensive list of special characters not allowed in object names? I want to write a parser that checks for these characters and remove/replaces them.

There should be a function like this that already exists, but I'm not able to find it. Thanks for the help!

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Matthew Gillespie ♦♦ Albert L commented · May 15, 2019 at 07:40 PM

Can you ask this as a separate question? Our best practices page encourages asking new separate questions instead of asking tangential questions in the comments of a different question.

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Albert L Albert L commented · May 15, 2019 at 07:00 PM

I found validatename (obj node, num isviewtext [, obj object])

but I'm looking for a method that can be passed in a string and outputs the corrected string without necessarily changing the node properties or popping up a message.

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