Naming or Renaming a product

The first section of this chapter explains about what are the renaming restrictions. The second section explains about how to rename a component (CATPart or CATProduct) after its insertion into an existing Assembly and how to solve name conflict.
Renaming Rules
User Interface
Manual Input
Part Number / File Name Differences
     1st scenario: renaming the Part Number
     2nd scenario: using Special Characters
     3rd scenario: using the Backslash
     4th scenario: unicity
Managing Part Number Conflicts

Renaming Rules

There are some situations in which the User cannot rename the Part Number:

  • Unicity: in a CATProduct, the Instance Name must be unique at one Assembly level. The Part Number must be unique within the complete assembly (with only one exception). You cannot enter the same Instance Name as the existing one in the document, at the same level.
  • Influence of the Part Number on the name of the document: By definition, the File Name is the name of the Part Number. And if you rename the Root's Part Number (and the document is not saved as a file), CATIA V5 tries to change the name of the file that is going to be saved.
  • Neither these special characters "!" and ":" nor an empty name " " and blank character at end of the string should be used in the:
    • Instance Name
    • Part Number
    • Publication.
  • About special characters described in About File Names, in CATIA - Infrastructure User's Guide, you can use them in the Part Number but not in the File Name because:
    • a default name is attributed to the File,
    • or the File Name is automatically truncated before the backslash (backslash is not authorized in File Name), see exact list of restrictions: About File Names.
  • Specific Language characters like and (French) for instance cannot be used in the File Name. An error message appears when you try to save this File.

User Interface

These renaming rules intervene in:
 

Manual Input

  1. Open a New Product in CATIA V5. Activate the Manual Input setting in Tools > Options > Infrastructure > Product Structure has been activated.

  1. Click on the Part icon and enter a name in the Part Number box. You can see that the name of the file is also Cube1.

  1. Change the Part Number to Parabola1 in the Properties contextual menu. You can notice that the name of the document becomes the same as the Part Number name; it is influenced by the Part Number name.
 

 

 

Part Number / File Name Differences:

1st scenario: Renaming the Part Number

  1. Save this product Parabola1 under the name Cube1: the Part Number is different from the document's name.

2nd scenario: Using Special Characters

  1. Change the Part Number of Parabola1 in the Properties contextual menu into: (special characters). And you can notice that the name of the document remains Cube1 and it no longer corresponds to the Part Number name. Special characters are not supported when saving the document as a file.
For more information about special characters when saving a document, please refer to About File Names, in CATIA - Infrastructure User's Guide.
 

 

  1. Open the Save Management window (File > Save Management): Cube1.CATProduct appears, the name of the document does not correspond to the name of the Part Number containing Special characters.

3rd scenario: Using the Backslash
 

  1. Create a New product and give it a name with a backslash: "Cube2\Elementary Source".

  2. Save this product and you will see that all the words before the backslash, and the backslash, are not taken into account.

     

So that the Undo functionality can work properly, a deleted CATIA document remains available in Session.

As it is not possible to save two documents with the same name in the same directory, CATIA V5 sometimes prefers to make the File name different from the Part Number.

4th scenario: unicity

  1. Create a New CATProduct: Product1.CATProduct.

  2. Insert 2 New Parts in this CATProduct: Part1.CATPart and Part2.CATPart.

  1. Delete Part2.CATPart:

  1. Insert a new part: Part3.

  2. Rename Part3 into Part2 via the Properties contextual menu, you will be able to change the part Number but not the Document name (Part3.CATPart). A warning appears reminding you that Part2.CATPart has disappeared from the assembly but it still exists in session.

  1. You can also check this by clicking in the menu: File > Save Management.

In one session, you cannot have two CATIA Documents having the same name. This is why the Document Name remains unchanged.
 

 

Managing Part Number Conflicts
Open the Assembly111.CATProduct  document.

  1. Select Assembly in Assembly111.CATProduct and Insert Assembly222.CATProduct document. For more information about importing a document, see Inserting Existing Components.

In both Assembly111.CATProduct and Assembly222.CATProduct, some components (Assembly and Last-Component) have the same Part Number, which makes the insertion problematic because the entities' Part Number must be unique in the whole document (not only at one Assembly level).

Therefore, the Part Number Conflicts dialog box is displayed:

This table exposes the name conflicts between Assembly111.CATProduct and Assembly222.CATProduct. It provides details about:

  • Part Number: the Part number of the component generating the conflict.
  • Selected File: references of the imported document.
  • Document generating the conflict: the position and name of the document generating the conflict.
  • Already imported file: source already existing (with the same Part Number as the imported component) inside the root product.
  • Status: not solved, when 2 components have the same Part number.

The Reconnect... button is activated when the imported component has the same geometry as the one in the original document.
In a CATProduct, the Part number must be unique at every level in the specification tree. The Part number's unicity is applied to the whole document.

  1. The solution is to rename the component generating the conflict: Select a line corresponding to a conflicting component and click the Rename... button to display the Part Number dialog box. You can enter a new name, for instance  "AssembElements" to replace "Assembly":

Once you have renamed this component, the Part number conflicts dialog box is updated; the status of "AssembElements" (former "Assembly") is then: Renamed. Thus the Part Number conflict with Assembly in assembly222.CATProduct is resolved:

You can do the same with the last two conflicts: Last-Component and Component3, and you will obtain for instance:

  1. Click OK to validate the operation and the conflicting components does not exist anymore; the new Part Numbers are now displayed in the specification tree:

The conflicting names are automatically changed in Assembly111.CATProduct.
There is an exception:

A local reference such as HANDLE (HANDLE.1) can have several occurrences with the same Part number, provided that both occurrences stand on a different assembly level. In our example, HANDLE (HANDLE.1) appears at 2 levels. For local references (.model, .cgr), the unicity rule is applied to one Assembly level only.

As for the Instance Name, it must be unique at one Assembly level. You can find the same instance name in a CATProduct, but not in an Assembly level.

  1. If you try to copy the HANDLE.model and paste it into the same document Assembly111.CATProduct, under AssembElements, its Instance Name is automatically converted into HANDLE (HANDLE.2).

However, its Part Number remains similar because it is a new instanciation of the local reference HANDLE.

It is possible for you to change again the Instance Name of this component, but you have to respect the unicity rule. For more information see Modifying Component Properties.

  1. If you try to insert HANDLE.model in Assembly111.CATProduct, the following Part number dialog box appears:

You can either Rename or Reconnect Document generating conflict:

  • Rename the Document generating conflict : if the inserted component is different from the one in the already existing document. Therefore, you create a new local reference in the document.
  • Reconnect the Document generating conflict : if the inserted component is the same as the one in the already existing document. As a consequence, you create a new instanciation of the existing local reference. It is the same process as when copying and pasting HANDLE (HANDLE.1).

  1. If you choose the Rename... button, "HANDLE" can be renamed with "AXIS".

The status of the inserted document has been modified and the Part number conflict is resolved:

You can visualize the adjustment in the Specification tree:

  1. If you click the Reconnect... button (instead of Renaming), it has the same effect as copying and pasting the .model, HANDLE (HANDLE.1), into the same document, Assembly111.CATProduct : you create a new instanciation of the existing local reference.

And its Instance Name is automatically converted into HANDLE (HANDLE.2). See the Assembly111.CATProduct picture above.

The process of renaming a CATPart is the exactly the same, except that you are not allowed to insert a CATProduct into a CATPart.
For more information about the options for Part number definition (Manual Input), see Defining the Default Part Number of the Component to be Imported.