Quit the Other Application

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Program with Objects from Other Applications

Access Windows APIs from VBA

Interact with Other Applications and Windows APIs > Interact with Other Windows Applications > Program with Objects from Other Applications >

Quit the Other Application

When you start an application programmatically it takes up memory in the computer. You should quit the application when you have finished using it so system resources can be freed up.

Although each Object Model is different, most have a Quit method from the Application object that can be used to close the application cleanly. For example, using the variable declarations from the previous section, the following line of code will quit Excel:

ExcelAppObj.Application.Quit

NoteDestroying or going beyond the scope of the object variable does not necessarily cause the application to terminate. You should always quit the application using the appropriate method to assure proper memory cleanup.

List AutoCAD attributes on an Excel spreadsheet

This subroutine finds all the block references in the current drawing. It then finds the attributes attached to those block references and lists them in an Excel spreadsheet. To run this example, do the following:

Open a drawing containing block references with attributes. (The sample drawing sample/activeX/attrib.dwg contains such block references.)
Open the VBA IDE using the AutoCAD VBAIDE command.
Using the Tools References menu option in the VBA IDE, select Microsoft Excel 8.0 Object Model.
Copy this subroutine into a VBA Code window and run it.

Sub Ch12_Extract()

    Dim Excel As Excel.Application

    Dim ExcelSheet As Object

    Dim ExcelWorkbook As Object

          Dim RowNum As Integer
          Dim Header As Boolean
          Dim elem As AcadEntity
          Dim Array1 As Variant
          Dim Count As Integer
                ' Launch Excel.
          Set Excel = New Excel.Application
                ' Create a new workbook and find the active sheet.
          Set ExcelWorkbook = Excel.Workbooks.Add
          Set ExcelSheet = Excel.ActiveSheet
          ExcelWorkbook.SaveAs "Attribute.xls"
                RowNum = 1
          Header = False
          ' Iterate through model space finding
          ' all block references.
          For Each elem In ThisDrawing.ModelSpace
              With elem
       ' When a block reference has been found,
       ' check it for attributes
       If StrComp(.EntityName, "AcDbBlockReference", 1) _
       = 0 Then
       If .HasAttributes Then
       ' Get the attributes
       Array1 = .GetAttributes
       ' Copy the Tagstrings for the
       ' Attributes into Excel
       For Count = LBound(Array1) To UBound(Array1)
       If Header = False Then
       If StrComp(Array1(Count).EntityName, _
       "AcDbAttribute", 1) = 0 Then
       ExcelSheet.Cells(RowNum, _
       Count + 1).value = _
       Array1(Count).TagString
       End If
       End If
       Next Count
       RowNum = RowNum + 1
       For Count = LBound(Array1) To UBound(Array1)
       ExcelSheet.Cells(RowNum, Count + 1).value _
       = Array1(Count).textString
       Next Count
       Header = True
       End If
       End If
              End With
          Next elem
          Excel.Application.Quit
      End Sub

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