[vtkusers] GetDataType usage

[David Doria]

Since this type of function exists, I'd imagine it would be possible to
determine the type of an array array in a polydata based only on it's name
and declare an array of the correct type to read the data.

void GetUnknownArrayType(const std::string &InputFilename, const std::string
&ArrayName)
{
    vtkSmartPointer<vtkXMLPolyDataReader> reader =
vtkSmartPointer<vtkXMLPolyDataReader>::New();
    reader->SetFileName(InputFilename.c_str());
    reader->Update();
    vtkSmartPointer<vtkPolyData> polydata = reader->GetOutput();


    vtkSmartPointer<UNKNOWN_TYPE> Array =
UNKNOWN_TYPE::SafeDownCast(polydata->GetPointData()->GetArray(ArrayName.c_str()));
    UNKNOWN_TYPE element[3];
    Array->GetTupleValue(0, element);

}

I guess the idea is you could make a template function which returned an
appropriate type based on the type of the array, rather than having a
GetIntArrayFromPolyData(), and GetDoubleArrayFromPolyData(), and
GetUnsignedCharArrayFromPolyData()... etc.

How would I go about doing this?

Also, I was looking for the GetArray() documentation. I started at
vtkPointData and searched for GetArray with no results. I went up to the
parent class, vtkDataSetAttributes and searched again, and again no match.
The parent class of vtkDataSetAttributes is vtkFieldData, in which there
does exist a GetArray function, but it's probably not the same as the
GetPointData->GetArray()?

Thanks,

David
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