Command to "select" an object?

What is the command to "select" an object? (highlight in red)

I'm trying to reference an object so that I can duplicate it using duplicateselected().

is there a script command to select an object already existing in the model? (ie. without shift-clicking on it?)

switch_selected()

I like to add some code I find useful if you speak about selected (red) objects.

 
// SELECT ALL NetworkNodes IN MODEL
forobjecttreeunder(model())
{
  if(comparetext("NetworkNode", getname(first(classes(a)))))
  {
    switch_selected(a, 1);
  }
  else
  {
    switch_selected(a, 0);
  }
}

 
// FOR ALL SELECTED (RED) OBJECTS IN MODEL
forobjecttreeunder(model())
{
  // IF OBJECT IS SELECTED AND IF IT IS AN OBJECT
  if(and(switch_selected(a,-1), getdatatype(a) == 4))
  {
    // SHOW A SCREEN MESSAGE WITH THE NAME
    msg(getname(a),getname(a));
  }
}

Thanks!

FYI.
duplicateselected() takes a very long time to create the 2nd object. I guess it wouldn't matter if you were only duplicating a few items, but I was trying to duplicate a few thousand.
createinstance(obj class, obj location) works significantly faster.