Select every 3rd object

[davus]

Sorry i'm a mel noob... I'm trying to select every nth object in my scene and was wondering how this could be achieved. 
Basically theres 1000 objects all name sequentially (obj_1, obj_2, obj_3.....) and I would like to select every third object. This would be a time waster if i had to do this by hand.... I'm sure its simple but if anyone could help that'd be super.

I know with the wild card i can select all the objects, but I can seem to get it to skip selections. Thanks

//selects all the objs

select -r "obj_*";

 

[joojaa]

select -r "obj_*";

not a good idea as it selects the shapes too this may cause confusion of certain odd combinations. Use,

select -r ls -type transform "obj\_*";

instead. Anyway i made a quick filter that operates on current selection so its more usefull for you in future

global proc jooFilterSelectionToEveryNthObject(int $n)
{
  string  $selection[], $newSelection[];
  $selection = `ls -sl`;
 
  for ($i = 0; $i < size($selection); $i += $n)
  {
    $newSelection[$i/$n] = $selection[$i];
  }
 
  select -r $newSelection;
}

so your total script would be, after adding that proc to your memory/lookup path:

select -r ls -type transform "obj\_*";
jooFilterSelectionToEveryNthObject 3;

Normally i would try to avoid using main selection but because its a utility for modelling it shall suffice.   

[davus]

Wow Thanks Joojaa.... that's exactly what i needed! Can't thank you enough!!