Identifiers for loaded objects

[YGuangye]

Hi! After from pymol import cmd, I obtained a list of strings representing the names of the objects in the object control panel using cmd.get_object_list(). Are there any other unique (and maybe internal) identifiers available for objects loaded?

Thank you.

[JarrettSJohnson]

What're you trying to accomplish? We also have these two commands where you can filter by object type or if the panel entries are selections or objects:

https://pymolwiki.org/index.php/Get_Names

https://pymolwiki.org/index.php/Get_names_of_type

[YGuangye]

Thank you very much for your prompt reply and introducing useful commands. I would like to track objects after multiple manipulations. While object names can be easily modified by renaming, I am looking for a unique identifier that remains unchanged throughout these modifications, if such a method is available.

[JarrettSJohnson]

Ah, I see. There isn't an API for this, though this is definitely something that I have wanted at least a couple of times.

One approach I can think of off of the top of my head if you have Incentive PyMOL is the user can provide some custom property (unique ID in this case), and have a function that iterates over objects and retrieves it later by that property.

[YGuangye]

Thank you for your advice. The custom object property feature in Incentive PyMOL seems very useful, but I am not sure if I can purchase a license. I have considered setting flags on atoms or titles in the initial states, I feel that they are not natural ways to achieve what I want though.
Additionally, properties or values set to an existing object could be copied by copy to object, resulting in duplicates.

Is it possible to track rename and creation of new objects done in GUI by python scripting?