SQOTD: "Why Can't I Purge This Freaking Layer?"

In plain-old AutoCAD, several conditions will prevent you from purging a layer:

• The layer has something on it
• The layer is called 0 or Defpoints
• The layer is current
• It's a layer in an XREF drawing

Civil 3D takes the layer thing even further. If a layer (or linetype, or block, or text style, for that matter) is called by any style you can't purge it. It doesn't matter if the style is in use or not, you can't purge layers that are part of a style.

Soooo, if you *need* to kill the layer you can still do so. However, forcing a layer to die will cause the style that uses it send any labeling or object to layer 0. As a CAD purist, I can't advocate putting anything on 0 so be careful.

The (former?) Express command that will delete a layer regardless of the aforementioned limitations is LAYDEL .

LAYDEL will ask you to graphically select or pick layers by name. In either case it will ask you to verify that this is what you want to do. Any objects on those layers go bye-bye.

Happy purging!