SolidWorks Hole Size and Extended ASCII codes

If you have tried to create a WizardHole of type "Simple Wizard Hole" using C++ API (not .NET but native C++) then you surely have run into this problem: "How to specify the size of the hole?"

SolidWorks needs the "PHI" symbol in Hole Size

SolidWorks' new FeatureManager::HoleWizard3 API fixes a problem we (colleagues of mine from the company I work for and I) have noticed in previous versions of the WizardHole API (ping me if you want details on that problem, but not relevant to this post, so am not providing details here). But the new API requires you to specify the size of the WizardHole in string literal format (or BSTR or CComBSTR). Typically this is not a problem but for the case of the "Simple Wizard Hole" SolidWorks expects the "diameter symol" to be input as part of the size if the "Standard" selected is "ANSI Metric".

Using Extended ASCII Table
So the API call looks something like this:

featmgr->HoleWizard3(eHoleType, eHoleStd, fastenerType, size, endCond, dRadius*2.0, dDepth, values[0], values[1], values[2], values[3], values[4], values[5], values[6], values[7], values[8], values[9], values[10], values[11], threadclass, FALSE, TRUE, TRUE, TRUE, TRUE, FALSE, &hole);

Ignore the other parameters for now and focus on the highlighted "size" parameter. To specify a size of "0.15mm" for "ANSI Metric" you would need to prepend the "phi" symbol to "0.15mm". How would you do this? Well you use extended ASCII codes, of course. Don't remember your extended ASCII codes? Well you could Google it, but this link (http://www.asciitable.com/) should suffice. The "size" string value should look something like this (for size 0.15):

CComBSTR size(L"\x237\x0\x46\x1\x5");

NOTE:

• I use a CComBSTR so that I don't have to free any BSTR manually.
• To specify an ASCII character in a string literal in C++ you have to prepend the ASCII code with "\x". Once you start specifying an ASCII character in the string literal, specify all characters in ASCII, else you will get compile or worse, runtime errors.
• If you omit the "L" in front of the string literal you will get a C2022 compile error (in Visual C++ 2005 at least).
• The ANSI code of \x237 is the diameter (phi) symbol. The ANSI code \x46 is the "." in 0.15. The rest are the Dec values (from the link provided) for "0", "1" and "5".

Conclusion

So how long has it been since you used the extended ASCII table? Its been so long for me, I don't even remember when I last used them. Glad I remembered how to!