Creating a material based on the query of my textScrollList

[davus]

I've been working on a little tool to help my workflow here (thanks to all of you who have answered my questions so far) and am so close to done I can taste it, except for this one issue. In my UI I have a "textScrollList" which basically lists all of the software materials (e.g. lambert, blinn, phong, blah blah). I want to create the material that is selected in that list when I hit apply. 

When i print the query from the UI, it does correctly print "lambert" (or whatever other material I choose) so I don't think thats the issue. 
I'm still very new to MEL, it seems to me like the below should create the new material - but it fails miserably.

//// here's an excerpt from the script

string $SWmaterial[] = textScrollList -q -si MaterialType;

shadingNode -asShader $SWmaterial; 

Which gives me the error:

// Error: line 391: Invalid argument: lambert // 

If I replace the variable  $SWmaterial with "lambert" that line creates the lambert shader no problem. Since $SWmaterial is returning "lambert" when its queried, why doesn't this work?

I have tried simplifying the problem and it seems to works just fine:

//// simplified version

string $SWmaterial = "lambert";

shadingNode -asShader $SWmaterial;

The only difference I can see is the use of the brackets when i query the result from the textScrollList, but when I remove the brackets I get this error.

// Error: line 147: Cannot convert data of type string[] to type string. // 

Thanks for any help! -DD

[ldunham1]

disclaimer: im still learning, so dont take what i say as fact

ok, from the first entry;

string $SWmaterial[] = textScrollList -q -si MaterialType;

shadingNode -asShader $SWmaterial; 

im assuming (i dont have maya on laptop) that it because you not specifying what item in the array to use (ie string $variable[] stores a list of strings accessed through an index ($variable[0] = "lambert", $variable[1] = "blinn", $variable[3]... and so on), so unless a list is required, you need to specify which item from the list you want to use), so instead use;

string $SWmaterial[] = textScrollList -q -si MaterialType;

shadingNode -asShader $SWmaterial[0];

its because textScrollList can have multiple return values depending on the flags you use (for multiple selection etc) which is why you got

// Error: line 147: Cannot convert data of type string[] to type string. //

when you tried to use

string $SWmaterial = textScrollList -q -si MaterialType;

hope that helps

[pilou--2]

If you want to be sure your query returns just One string  you could add the flag "-allowMultiSelection false" so you're sure the user won't select more than one shaderType 

[davus]

Thanx for the replies... works like a charm