VLOOKUP betwen AutoCAD and Excel?

[alcatel]

Does anyone know how to achieve this?

 

I have a series of blocks with attributes in Autocad. Attribute is a number (from 1 to 500). Each of the blocks represents a single machine with serial number 1-500 on it.

 

When I place a new block of machine (I do it by copy/paste from the nearby block) I just change the attribute value manually.

 

Now, as a separate file I have excel sheet with two columns:

COLUMN A -> serial number of machines (1-500)

COLUMN B -> type of machine (e.g. TYPE-1, TYPE-2, TYPE-3...), around 8 types in total

 

Is it possible to make a block with two values in it (attributes) and when a value of machine serial number in position 1 is changed it will look the excel file and return the machine type in position 2. Something like VLOOKUP excel formula, but in AUTOCAD.

 

For example if EXCEL is:

 

COLUMN A / COLUMN B

250 / TYPE-3

251 / TYPE-5

 

Than the change in AutoCAD attributes in position 1 and 2 is like this:

ATT-1: 250 ATT-2: TYPE-3

if I manually change ATT-1 to value 251, then:

ATT-1: 251 ATT-2: TYPE-3

[BIGAL]

I would look at some of the incrementing lisps so when add block it adds next number automatically. They work by looking up your block and retrieving the highest value. have a Look at www.Lee-mac.com auto numbering suite.

Here is an example of finding last number.

(setq ss1 (ssget "x" '((2 . "setout_point"))))
  (setq pno 0)
  (setq n (sslength ss1))   
  (setq index 0)
  (repeat n
     (setq en (ssname ss1 index))
     (setq index (+ index 1))
     (setq en1 (entnext en))
     (setq el1 (entget en1))
     (setq att (atoi (cdr (assoc 1 el1))))
     (if (> att pno) (setq pno att))
  );repeat
  (setq pno (+ pno 1))