How does Alibre-Script.Reflected work?

[k4kfh]

I'm trying to figure out how to use your Alibre-Script.Reflected tool, and I'd like to know how the documentation was actually generated, starting with AlibreX.dll. Here's what I understand so far:

• Somehow, ./sources/ folder gets populated with text files describing all methods/properties. Where did this documentation come from? Is there another tool somewhere that generated this, or did you make it manually?
• Each .txt file in ./sources is converted to a "stub" Python file by ./generate.py. This part makes reasonable sense to me.

Can you explain where the sources folder content came from? And can you also explain what the bin folder's contents are for? I'd love to know how to generate all these resources from scratch using these tools, on my own filesystem. If you can help me understand how to do it, I'll be happy to write some docs and PR them into your repo.

[stephensmitchell]

Yes, sources were generated by another tool that used AlibreScriptAddOn.dll (not AlibreX.dll). Reflected means I used .NET reflection to get the property and method signatures.

The format:

Type->AlibreScript.API.CircularArc
Property->Center
Property->StartPoint
Property->EndPoint
Property->Start
Property->End
Property->CenterPoint
Property->Radius
Property->Angle
Property->Type
Property->IsReference
Method->FigureObject()
Method->SetInstance(IADSketchFigureFigure)
Method->ToXml()
Method->FromXml(XElementXml)

Was made for LLMs and scripting (example):

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
# Stub for: AlibreScript.API.CircularArc
# IronPython 2.7 compatible (no PEP 484 types; use comments/docstrings)

try:
    # If running under IronPython, prefer .NET's Object for nicer tooling
    from System import Object
except Exception:
    Object = object  # Fallback for non-IronPython linters

__all__ = ["CircularArc"]


class CircularArc(Object):
    """
    Stub for AlibreScript.API.CircularArc

    Properties:
        Center         -> Point3D or Point2D (depending on API)
        StartPoint     -> Point3D or Point2D
        EndPoint       -> Point3D or Point2D
        Start          -> float (radians or degrees per API)
        End            -> float (radians or degrees per API)
        CenterPoint    -> Point3D or Point2D (alias of Center, if applicable)
        Radius         -> float
        Angle          -> float
        Type           -> enum/int/str (per API)
        IsReference    -> bool

    Methods:
        FigureObject()                       -> object
        SetInstance(IADSketchFigureFigure)   -> None
        ToXml()                              -> object (e.g., XElement)
        FromXml(XElementXml)                 -> None
    """

    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        # No-op: this is a stub for tooling/autocomplete.
        pass

    # --- Properties ---

    @property
    def Center(self):
        # type: () -> object  # Point2D/Point3D
        return None

    @Center.setter
    def Center(self, value):
        # type: (object) -> None
        pass

    @property
    def StartPoint(self):
        # type: () -> object  # Point2D/Point3D
        return None

    @StartPoint.setter
    def StartPoint(self, value):
        # type: (object) -> None
        pass

    @property
    def EndPoint(self):
        # type: () -> object  # Point2D/Point3D
        return None

    @EndPoint.setter
    def EndPoint(self, value):
        # type: (object) -> None
        pass

    @property
    def Start(self):
        # type: () -> float
        return 0.0

    @Start.setter
    def Start(self, value):
        # type: (float) -> None
        pass

    @property
    def End(self):
        # type: () -> float
        return 0.0

    @End.setter
    def End(self, value):
        # type: (float) -> None
        pass

    @property
    def CenterPoint(self):
        # type: () -> object  # Point2D/Point3D
        return None

    @CenterPoint.setter
    def CenterPoint(self, value):
        # type: (object) -> None
        pass

    @property
    def Radius(self):
        # type: () -> float
        return 0.0

    @Radius.setter
    def Radius(self, value):
        # type: (float) -> None
        pass

    @property
    def Angle(self):
        # type: () -> float
        return 0.0

    @Angle.setter
    def Angle(self, value):
        # type: (float) -> None
        pass

    @property
    def Type(self):
        # type: () -> object  # enum/int/str
        return None

    @Type.setter
    def Type(self, value):
        # type: (object) -> None
        pass

    @property
    def IsReference(self):
        # type: () -> bool
        return False

    @IsReference.setter
    def IsReference(self, value):
        # type: (bool) -> None
        pass

    # --- Methods ---

    def FigureObject(self):
        # type: () -> object
        """Return the underlying figure object."""
        return None

    def SetInstance(self, IADSketchFigureFigure):
        # type: (object) -> None
        """Bind to an existing IADSketchFigureFigure instance."""
        pass

    def ToXml(self):
        # type: () -> object  # XElement
        """Serialize this arc to an XML element."""
        return None

    def FromXml(self, XElementXml):
        # type: (object) -> None  # XElement
        """Populate this arc from an XML element."""
        pass

The bin directory contains example files. Here are a bunch of screenshots from Alibre Forum posts to give an idea:

The output directory contains the generated classes produced by the script:

https://github.com/stephensmitchell/alibre-script/tree/master/Alibre-Script.Reflected

[k4kfh]

That makes more sense, thank you.

Yes, sources were generated by another tool that used AlibreScriptAddOn.dll (not AlibreX.dll).

Is this tool already published, or are you willing to publish it? I would love to try and meld that with the textual help from the Alibre-provided .chm file somehow.

[stephensmitchell]

I'm revisiting the projects for the VS Code extension work which I plan to release next week. I can't share them they're bundled with my private code, but I'll include the scripts used to generate new stub files for the VS Code extension that's standalone. They are better suited anyways over this reflection version. They will have full coverage with proper typing support.

[stephensmitchell]

I would love to try and meld that with the textual help from the Alibre-provided .chm file somehow.

My documentation work does that exactly, https://github.com/stephensmitchell/alibre-script-documentation

The VS Code extension builds on top of everything.

[stephensmitchell]

You really only need AlibreScript.xml that's in the installation folder + the chm or my documentation repo + the csv version of the xml.

The code that generate the source use the xml as input.

AI is not required but here's how I explained it:

https://www.alibre.com/forum/index.php?threads/prompt-engineering.24660/

[stephensmitchell]

I'm trying to figure out how to use your Alibre-Script.Reflected tool, and I'd like to know how the documentation was actually generated, starting with AlibreX.dll. Here's what I understand so far:

• Somehow, ./sources/ folder gets populated with text files describing all methods/properties. Where did this documentation come from? Is there another tool somewhere that generated this, or did you make it manually?
• Each .txt file in ./sources is converted to a "stub" Python file by ./generate.py. This part makes reasonable sense to me.

Can you explain where the sources folder content came from? And can you also explain what the bin folder's contents are for? I'd love to know how to generate all these resources from scratch using these tools, on my own filesystem. If you can help me understand how to do it, I'll be happy to write some docs and PR them into your repo.

Try the early release of the extension:
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=stephensmitchell.alibrescript

[k4kfh]

That appears to work great!

I'll continue to test it out, let me know if there is anywhere I can help write docs or anything.

Off-topic, but have you written anything to add "Form New Subassembly" and "Dissolve Subassembly" functionality to Alibre? If there's anything I would like to see done with the API, it's that. It's the #1 feature I miss from SOLIDWORKS and Fusion.

[stephensmitchell]

Off-topic, but have you written anything to add "Form New Subassembly" and "Dissolve Subassembly" functionality to Alibre?

Yes, eventually I'll build assembly tools as part of my Dynamo project.