Can't extract name of block reference

[jamesduke488]

I'm trying to get the name of block INSERT entities however some of them are returning *UXX instead of their actual name in AutoCAD. I understand these are anonymous block entries and therefore it's a bit more difficult to access some of their info directly but I haven't been able to find any clear workaround either online or from AI prompts.
The blocks have no effective name attributes and I am able to get the correct names for some block references. Any help would be greatly appreciated

[mozman]

I can't help much.

*Uxx is the name of the block. CAD applications use these anonymous blocks to display the graphical output of some commands such as DIMENSION *Dxx, TABLE *Txx or ARRAY *Uxx.

The only way to get more information about such a block is to look at the DXF structure. The ezdxf browse command can help with this. It even has a search function to find the names you are looking for.

[jamesduke488]

Yeah, I've looked into the xdata and found that there are references to the original non-dynamic blocks in the xdata of the dynamic blocks.
My issue now however is that when I try to get the xdata tags through code it's saying that none of the entities have xdata.
I've tried to check using the individual block appid's (where I've gotten a DXFValueError despite checking spelling and case sensitivity) as well as looping through the entities and using the .xdata attribute. However in both cases it's saying there's no xdata even though there clearly is.
I'm really confused. If I can just access the xdata of the dynamic blocks I should be able to get the name of the original block

[mozman]

Show me your code with the attached zipped DXF file and maybe I can help.

[mozman]

https://github.com/mozman/ezdxf/blob/master/src/ezdxf/dynblkhelper.py

This is a helper module based on a previous discussion about dynamic blocks. Keep in mind the dynamic block structure is not documented by Autodesk.

[jamesduke488]

Aw man you are an absolute life saver. As soon as I tried it with the .block_record attribute I was able to get the xdata. Thank you so much.

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On Mon, Jun 17, 2024 at 4:40 PM Manfred Moitzi ***@***.***> wrote: https://github.com/mozman/ezdxf/blob/master/src/ezdxf/dynblkhelper.py This is a helper module based on a previous discussion about dynamic blocks. Keep in mind the dynamic block structure is not documented by Autodesk. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#1109 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AYTZFY5SJT7AP6MMJ4L7IALZH37OBAVCNFSM6AAAAABJKSPTZSVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43SRDJONRXK43TNFXW4Q3PNVWWK3TUHM4TOOJWGIZTK> . You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>