In my company, we use a library of files, which are included in our projects. These files can be for example datasheets of components, formulas out of toolboxes and so on. If we open a project file we encounter very often the problem that include files are marked red, meaning Mathcad reports an error with the file. The fact is, that there is no error in the file:
We found a workaround for this, but this takes a lot of time. When you edit the path, you can force MathCad to reread the file and the error is gone. This has to be done for all marked files. Sometimes even this does not work. Then you have to open the corresponding file, recalculate and store it again.
As we have include files, which include other files, this can get very very nasty. I reported this already more than 2 years ago, but no reaction. Now this problem got even worse. As the network path changed, MathCad hanged or got extremely slow (hours !), when opening a file with include file paths still on the old, not anymore existing, network location. After updating the paths, we still encountered this problem. I found out, that MathCad somehow "remembers" the old paths, even after correcting the paths. Very odd. I opened the Mathcad files with a text editor and found out, that the old network paths were still stored inside the file, even after correcting them. Besides I found out, that data from included files are somehow stored in the current Mathcad file, despite the fact that we disabled caching on all files. I also observed that, when I create data arrays, the file size gets bigger with the size of the arrays, even when disabling caching. I would not expect this. If caching is disabled, I would expect Mathcad to recalculate the complete sheet and to reread and recalculate all included sheets, even sheets included in included files and so on.
All this slows us down, making it hard to work with Mathcad. does anybody have a solution for this?
1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION
Accepted Solutions
1 In my company (Vitesco) with about 40000 employees we have an IT support. Together with the support I tried to open a ticket. But we encountered a problem. In my login profile the website stated Vitesco has a gold support contract. When I submitted the ticket I got the error that I am not allowed to open a ticket, because I only have silver status. I then gave this case over to the support, who told me later that they opened a ticket. I am not sure about that because I didn't hear anything about it. The ticket was opened on 18th or 19th November
2. The include files in the library contain for example datasheet values of electronic components such as resistance values, voltages of diodes etc. or for examples basic formulas, which are often used such as voltage divider ratio calculation or formulas for often used circuits. Include files in the project directory mostly consist of project wide values for example voltage ranges of power supplies etc. We also have include files, which again include other files
Here is an example of a file I mentioned above:
None of the included files contains a path including the string "conti":
When I open the file in a text editor, I can find paths containing "conti". This paths do not exist anymore, which lead to the problems mentioned above. But none of these paths are used in the Mathcad file. This is very odd:
@Manfred_F wrote:
In my company, we use a library of files, which are included in our projects. These files can be for example datasheets of components, formulas out of toolboxes and so on. If we open a project file we encounter very often the problem that include files are marked red, meaning Mathcad reports an error with the file. The fact is, that there is no error in the file:
We found a workaround for this, but this takes a lot of time. When you edit the path, you can force MathCad to reread the file and the error is gone. This has to be done for all marked files. Sometimes even this does not work. Then you have to open the corresponding file, recalculate and store it again.
As we have include files, which include other files, this can get very very nasty. I reported this already more than 2 years ago, but no reaction.
Have you tried:
- recalculating the whole worksheet?
- selecting an include region and pressing F5 (recalculate region)? {⁑}
Stuart
{⁑} ... not forgetting, like I often do, to press the Fn key as well as F5 if needed, depending upon how I've set up my function keys.
If you have a sheet file with an included file, and you recalculate the sheet entirely (press the calculate butten)
and then save it, then the path to the include file should be updated in the (referring) sheet file. But the included file is not updated by this process, so any path(s) to included file(s) in there are NOT updated. To update that, you have to open the include file itself, recalculate it and save it.
Hope this helps,
Success!
Luc
@LucMeekes wrote:
If you have a sheet file with an included file, and you recalculate the sheet entirely (press the calculate butten)
and then save it, then the path to the include file should be updated in the (referring) sheet file. But the included file is not updated by this process, so any path(s) to included file(s) in there are NOT updated. To update that, you have to open the include file itself, recalculate it and save it.
That's why I suggested a recalculate as something to try.
However, it does introduce an interesting conundrum. A "feature suggestion" might be to auto-calculate all worksheets in a chain, but I would suggest that it is optional.
At the moment (AFAIG), the referenced worksheet doesn't update when it's read in. At least part of the rationale for this behaviour is that it may have taken a long time to calculate in the first place and, by saving the data, the user doesn't have to wait for a recalculate (which Herr Froehler indicates is part of his problem).
A recalculation would only be necessary if something in the environment had changed or the user wanted to ensure all calculations were up to date.
The next step in the "reference" problem is whether Mathcad should save changes to referenced worksheets. Again, if I were a support customer, I might suggest it as an option on the Save dialog - whatever requires less thinking and effort on the user's part.
A feature I would definitely have had occasional, but heartfelt, use for would be the ability to specify a new library location and have Mathcad (optionally) automatically update all references that point to that new location.
Stuart
Luc, I already found out that I have to open all include files and recalculate them. We also checked that we don't have a circular include, besides that our "systemic" approach already cares for this. Furthermore I already stated that caching is disabled for all files. As PTC states that include works the same way as when I would insert the file at the location of the include command, nobody expects, that I have to do a recalculation (as long as the include file is not changed when the main file is open). So after opening a file I would expect with caching disabled that all files are reread. I also observed that file size gets bigger when I create big arrays (caching disbled). Think about this, I have a small file with a few formulas and storing this file takes Gigabytes of memory (caching disabled). That is not what I expect. So the caching feature is surely very useful in cases where I dont want to wait a long time for results, but when it is disabled I expect that all data is not stored inside the file. Finally I really dont expect, that Mathcad stores the path of the include files (also with caching disabled). I remember I made an experiment with including files and I found a screenshot, which states that Mathcad stores these paths. At the time I made this experiment I didn't realize the consequences this has:
This picture shows that after changing the path of the include file Mathcad showed an error that it cannot find the file, but showing a different path to the file in the error message. This is showing the cached path !!!!
In principle we now have a solution, but a very annoying one, because we have a lot of work with updating all these sheets. Our library consists of hundreds of files. If this caching feature would work as expected, we wouldn't have any problems.
