SoSearchAction(3)

NAME
SoSearchAction - The SoSearchAction class provides methods for searching through scene graphs.

Nodes can be searched for by pointer, type, and name, or a combination of those criteria. Types can be interpreted as exact types, or the type can match nodes derived from it. Every single node can be searched, or normal traversal rules can be followed when searching (this is especially important to note with regard to switch nodes).

SYNOPSIS

#include <Inventor/actions/SoSearchAction.h>

Inherits SoAction.

  Public Types
enum LookFor { NODE = 1, TYPE = 2, NAME = 4 }
enum Interest { FIRST, LAST, ALL }

  Public Member Functions
virtual SoType getTypeId (void) const
SoSearchAction (void)
virtual ~SoSearchAction (void)
void setNode (SoNode *const node)
SoNode * getNode (void) const
void setType (const SoType type, const SbBool chkderived=TRUE)
SoType getType (SbBool &chkderived) const
void setName (const SbName name)
SbName getName (void) const
void setFind (const int what)
int getFind (void) const
void setInterest (const Interest interest)
Interest getInterest (void) const
void setSearchingAll (const SbBool searchall)
SbBool isSearchingAll (void) const
SoPath * getPath (void) const
SoPathList & getPaths (void)
void reset (void)
void setFound (void)
SbBool isFound (void) const
void addPath (SoPath *const path)

  Static Public Member Functions
static SoType getClassTypeId (void)
static void addMethod (const SoType type, SoActionMethod method)
static void enableElement (const SoType type, const int stackindex)
static void initClass (void)

  Static Public Attributes
static SbBool duringSearchAll = FALSE

  Protected Member Functions
virtual const SoEnabledElementsList & getEnabledElements (void) const
virtual void beginTraversal (SoNode *node)

  Static Protected Member Functions
static SoEnabledElementsList * getClassEnabledElements (void)
static SoActionMethodList * getClassActionMethods (void)

  Additional Inherited Members

Detailed Description

The SoSearchAction class provides methods for searching through scene graphs.

Nodes can be searched for by pointer, type, and name, or a combination of those criteria. Types can be interpreted as exact types, or the type can match nodes derived from it. Every single node can be searched, or normal traversal rules can be followed when searching (this is especially important to note with regard to switch nodes). When using more than one of the setNode(), setType() and setName() calls, note that the action will search for node(s) with an 'AND' combination of the given search criteria.

One of the most common pitfalls when using the SoSearchAction class is to call the function isFound() after doing a search. It does not return what you would expect it to return if you haven't read the documentation for that function.

Be aware that if you do search operations on an SoSearchAction created on the stack, you can get some unfortunate side effects if you're not careful. Since SoSearchAction keeps a list of the path(s) found in the latest search, the nodes in these paths will be unref'ed when the SoSearchAction stack instance is destructed at the end of your function. If the root of your scene-graph then has ref-count zero (it is often useful to do a unrefNoDelete() before returning a node from a function to leave the referencing to the caller), the root node will be destructed! It might be better to create a heap instance of the search action in those cases, since you'll then be able to destruct the search action before calling unrefNoDelete(). Another solution would be to call reset() before calling unrefNoDelete() on your object, since reset() truncates the path list.

See the documentation of SoTexture2 for a full usage example of SoSearchAction.

Member Enumeration Documentation

  enum SoSearchAction::LookFor
Specify the search criterion. This can be a bitwise combination of the available values.

  enum SoSearchAction::Interest
Values used when specifiying what node(s) we are interested in: the first one found, the last one or all of them.

Constructor & Destructor Documentation

  SoSearchAction::SoSearchAction (void)
Initializes internal settings with default values. With the default settings, the SoSearchAction will ignore all nodes.

  SoSearchAction::~SoSearchAction (void) [virtual]
Destructor.

Member Function Documentation

  SoType SoSearchAction::getTypeId (void) const [virtual]
Returns the type identification of an action derived from a class inheriting SoAction. This is used for run-time type checking and 'downward' casting.

Usage example:

void bar(SoAction * action)
{
  if (action->getTypeId() == SoGLRenderAction::getClassTypeId()) {
    // safe downward cast, know the type
    SoGLRenderAction * glrender = (SoGLRenderAction *)action;
  }
  return; // ignore if not renderaction
}

For application programmers wanting to extend the library with new actions: this method needs to be overridden in all subclasses. This is typically done as part of setting up the full type system for extension classes, which is usually accomplished by using the pre-defined macros available through Inventor/nodes/SoSubAction.h: SO_ACTION_SOURCE, SO_ACTION_INIT_CLASS and SO_ACTION_CONSTRUCTOR.

For more information on writing Coin extensions, see the SoAction class documentation.

Returns the actual type id of an object derived from a class inheriting SoAction. Needs to be overridden in all subclasses.

Implements SoAction.

  void SoSearchAction::addMethod (const SoType type, SoActionMethod method) [static]
This API member is considered internal to the library, as it is not likely to be of interest to the application programmer.

  void SoSearchAction::enableElement (const SoType type, const int stackindex) [static]
This API member is considered internal to the library, as it is not likely to be of interest to the application programmer.

  const SoEnabledElementsList & SoSearchAction::getEnabledElements (void) const [protected], [virtual]
Returns a list of the elements used by action instances of this class upon traversal operations.

Reimplemented from SoAction.

  void SoSearchAction::setNode (SoNode *const nodeptr)
Sets the node pointer to search for.

The action will be configured to set the search 'interest' to LookFor NODE, so there is no need to call SoSearchAction::setFind().

  SoNode * SoSearchAction::getNode (void) const
Returns the node the SoSearchAction instance is configured to search for.

Note that this method does not return what was found when you applied the action - it only returns what was specifically set by the user with setNode(). What the action found is returned by getPath() and getPaths().

  void SoSearchAction::setType (const SoType typearg, const SbBool chkderivedarg = TRUE)
Configures the SoSearchAction instance to search for nodes of the given type, and nodes of classes derived from the given type if chkderived is TRUE.

The action will be configured to set the search 'interest' to LookFor TYPE, so there is no need to call SoSearchAction::setFind().

  SoType SoSearchAction::getType (SbBool & chkderivedref) const
Returns the node type which is searched for, and whether derived classes of that type also returns a match.

  void SoSearchAction::setName (const SbName namearg)
Configures the SoSearchAction instance to search for nodes with the given name.

The action will be configured to set the search 'interest' to LookFor NAME, so there is no need to call SoSearchAction::setFind().

See also:
    SoNode::getByName()

  SbName SoSearchAction::getName (void) const
Returns the name the SoSearchAction instance is configured to search for.

  void SoSearchAction::setFind (const int what)
Configures what to search for in the scene graph. what is a bitmask of LookFor flags.

Default find configuration is to ignore all nodes, but the setFind() configuration is updated automatically when any one of SoSearchAction::setNode(), SoSearchAction::setType() or SoSearchAction::setName() is called.

  int SoSearchAction::getFind (void) const
Returns the search configuration of the action instance.

  void SoSearchAction::setInterest (const Interest interestarg)
Configures whether only the first, the last, or all the searching matches are of interest. Default configuration is FIRST.

  SoSearchAction::Interest SoSearchAction::getInterest (void) const
Returns whether only the first, the last, or all the searching matches will be saved.

  void SoSearchAction::setSearchingAll (const SbBool searchallarg)
Specifies whether normal graph traversal should be done (searchall is FALSE, which is the default setting), or if every single node should be searched (searchall is TRUE).

If the searchall flag is TRUE, even nodes considered 'hidden' by other actions are searched (like for instance the disabled children of SoSwitch nodes).

SoBaseKit::setSearchingChildren() must be used to search for nodes under node kits.

  SbBool SoSearchAction::isSearchingAll (void) const
Returns the traversal method configuration of the action.

  SoPath * SoSearchAction::getPath (void) const
Returns the path to the node of interest that matched the search criterions. If no match was found, NULL is returned.

Note that if ALL matches are of interest, the result of a search action must be fetched through SoSearchAction::getPaths().

There is one frequently asked question about the paths that are returned from either this method or the getPaths() method below: 'why am I not getting the complete path as expected?'

Well, then you probably have to cast the path to a SoFullPath, since certain nodes (nodekits, many VRML97 nodes) have hidden children. SoPath::getTail() will return the first node that has hidden children, or the tail if none of the nodes have hidden children. SoFullPath::getTail() will always return the actual tail. Just do like this:

SoFullPath * path = (SoFullPath *) searchaction->getPath();
SoVRMLCoordinate * vrmlcord = (SoVRMLCoordinate *) path->getTail();

  SoPathList & SoSearchAction::getPaths (void)
Returns a pathlist of all nodes that matched the search criterions.

Note that if interest were only FIRST or LAST, SoSearchAction::getPath() should be used instead of this method.

See also:
    getPath()

  void SoSearchAction::reset (void)
Resets all the SoSearchAction internals back to their default values.

  void SoSearchAction::setFound (void)
This API member is considered internal to the library, as it is not likely to be of interest to the application programmer.

Marks the SoSearchAction instance as terminated.

  SbBool SoSearchAction::isFound (void) const
This API member is considered internal to the library, as it is not likely to be of interest to the application programmer.

Returns whether the search action was terminated.

Note that this value does not reflect whether the node(s) that was searched for was found or not. Use the result of getPath() / getPaths() if that is what you really are looking for.

  void SoSearchAction::addPath (SoPath *const pathptr)
This API member is considered internal to the library, as it is not likely to be of interest to the application programmer.

Sets the path, or adds the path to the path list, depending on the interest configuration. The path is not copied, so it can not be modified after being added without side effects.

  void SoSearchAction::beginTraversal (SoNode * node) [protected], [virtual]
This virtual method is called from SoAction::apply(), and is the entry point for the actual scenegraph traversal.

It can be overridden to initialize the action at traversal start, for specific initializations in the action subclasses inheriting SoAction.

Default method just calls traverse(), which any overridden implementation of the method must do too (or call SoAction::beginTraversal()) to trigger the scenegraph traversal.

Reimplemented from SoAction.

Member Data Documentation

  SbBool SoSearchAction::duringSearchAll = FALSE [static]
Obsoleted global flag, only present for compatibility reasons with old SGI / TGS Inventor application code.

It's set to TRUE when an SoSearchAction traversal with SoSearchAction::isSearchingAll() equal to TRUE is started, and is reset to FALSE again after traversal has finished.

(The flag is used by SGI / TGS Inventor in SoSwitch::affectsState() to know when SoSwitch::whichChild should behave as SoSwitch::SO_SWITCH_ALL. We have a better solution for this problem in Coin.)

Author

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