I have a component pattern (e.g. a linear pattern, circular pattern...).
I have one of the pattern instances as a Component2 object.
I am looking for a way to get the seed component name via the API.
The only way I can think of is to traverse the feature tree, collect all patterns and check if the given component (part1<3> in this case) is a member of any of these patterns. If yes, I can get the pattern data (e.g. for a linear pattern it is a LocalLinearPatternFeatureData object, for a circular pattern it is a LocalCircularPatternFeatureData object, and so on) and from there I can probably get the seed component somehow. When I have the component, I finally call Component2.Name2.
But there must be an easier way! Or not?
Let's call the given component "comp".
Let's call the assembly in which both the given and the sought component reside "assy".
1. Retrieve either the IAssemblyDoc of assy or the IComponent2 that represents assy. Let's call the retrieved object "assyObj".
2. Call assyObj.FeatureByName(comp.Name2). You get an IFeature "feat" as a result.
3. Call feat.GetParents(). You get an array of IFeatures "parentFeats". In the cases I had so far (linear component patterns), there were two parents: the pattern feature and the seed component feature.
5. Loop through parentFeats: For each IFeature "parent", check if it equals the name of comp except for all characters behind the last "-" (because these characters represent the instance number: "part1-3", "part1-1"). If yes, we have found the name of the seed component.