Autodesk 00128-051462-9310 - AUTOCAD 2008 COMM UPG FRM 2005 DVD, User Manual

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When entering a mask, use the following conventions to represent the fields, characters, and delimiters that comprise
the key pattern:
■
Enclose sortable fields in brackets [ ] and delimiters in curly brackets { }. Example: [field]{delimiter}[field].
■
Delimiters can be any character except a backslash (\) or any character string that does not begin with a backslash.
(The backslash is reserved for system use.)
■
Use a pound sign (#) to indicate a numeric character and a question mark (?) to indicate an alphanumeric character
(digit, letter, or punctuation mark).
■
For fixed-length fields, use the specified number of characters. Example: [###] indicates a 3-digit fixed-length field.
■
Use [#...#] to indicate a variable-length numeric field, and [?...?] for a variable-length alphanumeric field.
■
A variable-length field is always followed by a delimiter unless it is the final field in the mask.
As an example, the AecKeynotes database uses keys that consist of a 5-digit field, followed by a delimiter (.), a 1-character
alphanumeric field, and a variable-length numeric field (for example, 09250.A101). The mask representing this pattern
would be [#####]{.}[?][#...#]
1 On the Window menu, click Pulldowns
➤
CAD Manager Pulldown.
2 On the CAD Manager menu, click Keynote Editor.
3 Select a database from the Keynote Database list.
4 Click to display the Specify Key Sort dialog box.
5 In the Specify Key Sort dialog box, enter a key sort mask for each key pattern in the selected database. Use
a different line for each mask.
6 Click OK.
Keynote Database Schema
To create or modify a keynote database by using Microsoft
®
Access (rather than using the Keynote Editor), you need
to be familiar with the database schema used in AutoCAD Architecture.
A keynote database contains four tables:
■
Fingerprint
■
Groups
■
Keynotes
■
KeySort
1980 | Chapter 44 Annotation and Keynoting Tools