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Shape.UniqueID Property

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Visio Automation Reference

Gets, deletes, or makes the GUID that uniquely identifies the shape within the scope of the application. Read-only.

Version Information
 Version Added:  Visio 4.0

Syntax

expression.UniqueID(fUniqueID)

expression   An expression that returns a Shape object.

Parameters

Name Required/Optional Data Type Description
fUniqueID Required Integer Gets, deletes, or makes the unique ID of a Shape object. See Remarks for possible values.

Return Value
String

Remarks

Microsoft Office Visio identifies shapes by two different IDs: shape IDs and unique IDs. Shape IDs are numeric and uniquely identify shapes within the scope of an individual drawing page. They are not unique within a wider scope, however.

Unique IDs are GUIDs. They are unique within the scope of the application.

To convert between shape IDs and unique IDs, you can use two methods of the Page object, ShapeIDsToUniqueIDs and UniqueIDsToShapeIDs.

By default, a shape does not have a unique ID. A shape acquires a unique ID only if you set its UniqueID property.

If a Shape object has a unique ID, no other shape in any other document will have the same ID.

The fUniqueID parameter controls the behavior of the UniqueID property. It should have one of the following values declared in the Visio type library in VisUniqueIDArgs.

Constant Value Description

visGetGUID

0

Returns the unique ID string only if the shape already has a unique ID. Otherwise it returns a zero-length string ("").

visGetOrMakeGUID

1

Returns the unique ID string of the shape. If the shape does not yet have a unique ID, it assigns one to the shape and returns the new ID.

visDeleteGUID

2

Deletes the unique ID of a shape and returns a zero-length string ("").

To get a shape if you know its unique ID, use Shapes.Item(UniqueIDString).

For example, you can use the following code:

Visual Basic for Applications 
  Dim vsoShape As Visio.Shape
Set vsoShape = Visio.ActivePage.Shapes.Item("{2287DC42-B167-11CE-88E9-0020AFDDD917}")

Alternatively, you can use the following code, which adds the letter "U" before the string to identify it as a unique ID:

Visual Basic for Applications 
  Dim vsoShape As Visio.Shape
Set vsoShape = Visio.ActivePage.Shapes.Item("U{2287DC42-B167-11CE-88E9-0020AFDDD917}")

See Also