Example: Using Rules and Criteria for Comparing Entity Names
You can search for items by name in the Search Tool dialog box. To search for an entity by name, click the Attributes tab in the Search Tool dialog box and under Rules, select Name. Under Comparison, specify a condition such as, is equal to, is not equal to, is less than, is greater than, is less than or equal to, and is greater than or equal to, for comparing the name specified in the criteria with other entity names in the model.
In the Search Tool dialog box, under Criteria, you can set the Value in one of the following ways:
• Specify the exact name that you want to search for. Creo Parametric searches for items in the model whose names match exactly with the specified name.
• Use wildcards. Creo Parametric searches for all items whose names contain the specified character. For example, the rule Name is equal to A* searches for entity names that begin with the letter A. Similarly, the rule Name is equal to B*A searches for entity names that begin with the letter B and end with the letter A.
• Use asterisk only. Creo Parametric searches all the items that have a default feature name and for items for which you have explicitly assigned a feature name in the model. For example, the rule Name is equal to * searches for all entities that have a feature name defined in the model.
While searching for an entity by its name, Creo Parametric compares the names character by character. However, for groups of digits, the values of the groups are compared.
Some examples of how Creo Parametric compares the names, while searching for an entity by its name, are:
• If the model includes datum features named DTM1, DTM2, DTM003, DTM0004, and DTM005 and you have created the following rules to build a query:
Rule 1:Name is greater than DTM1
Logical operator: AND
Rule 2:Name is less than DTM005
The result of the search includes DTM2, DTM003, and DTM0004.
• If you create a rule Name is equal to DT*, the result includes DTM1, DTM2, DTM003, DTM0004, and DTM005 along with the other entities that have their names starting with DT.
A few more examples of how Creo Parametric compares the names, while searching for an entity by its name, are:
• The name abc is less than the name abcd.
• The name abcd is less than the name zabcde.
• The name 12ab is greater than the name 2a.
Similarly, you can use the rule-criteria combination to search for entities based on their attributes, history, status, and geometry properties.