General question about UserDictionary and ghenv.Component.InstanceGuid

This is a general question Im just hoping to improve my own understanding

I've noticed these two pieces of code in some components created in the Honeybee project.

geometry.UserDictionary.Set('HBID', key) and

ghenv.Component.InstanceGuid

as well as the line of code str(uuid.uuid4()))

Firstly what is UserDictionary and why would I use it and not the sticky?

Secondly what does the following lines of code do?

ghenv.Component.InstanceGuid and

str(uuid.uuid4()))

Where can I find more information about these lines of code is it in rhino commons?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by huaxiamengqing on March 24, 2015 at 9:52pm

we have discussed userdictionary and userdata much before,But unfortunately they have been deleted by ning--

Permalink Reply by djordje on March 25, 2015 at 7:31am

Hi Anton,

ghenv.Component.InstanceGuid returns guid of your python component. Like geometry objects, grasshopper components have guids too.

As for UserDictionary, it's meant to attach some data (a string, geometry, material...) to a particular geometry, layer, attributes...
But it seems that currently it only supports instances of the classes derived from CommonObject class. So in python, you better use sticky dictionary as Mostapha pointed out in the upper link, as it's universal, and can accept anything, from geometry to functions, classes...

Not sure about the third one: str(uuid.uuid4())), it's probably question for Mostapha.

As for the help info, look at RhinoCommon SDK pages and Grasshopper SDK help file ("Help-> Download SDK Help" in your Grasshopper application menu)

Permalink Reply by Anton Szilasi on March 25, 2015 at 8:41pm