[PD-dev] extending the .pd format

[Mathieu Bouchard]

On Wed, 24 Mar 2004, Thomas Grill wrote:

> i don't know if you are aware of the way extra information is handled
> in Max/Jitter and also flext. There, the format is as follows

I am very much aware of that, and it is a bit of a discomfort, because the
GridFlow object class name prefix is "@" too (since the beginning, that
is, spring of 2001). Frankly I'm not too sure what other prefix it can be,
but I want it to be as short as that. I really don't want [@ +] to become
as verbose as [jit.op @op +]. And also GridFlow was there before Jitter,
so why should I change my stuff. That's quite a bit of a dilemma.

> #X object arg1 arg2 arg3... @key1 val1... @key2 val2.... @key3 val3
> .... etc. The key-value pairs are known as "attributes", with the @ of
> course being a reserved symbol.

May I know why attributes have a prefix at all? Is it for distinguishing
the end of the main argument list from the attribute list?

BTW GridFlow has something called startup messages, so that this:

  [foo bar, hello 37, world 42]

is roughly equivalent to:

  [loadbang]
   |
  [hello 37, world 42 (
   |
  [foo bar]

except that those messages get sent at the moment the object is created,
which is before it gets connected to other objects. This is my way of
implementing attributes.

> This is very easily implemented without modifications to the patcher format.

I call it modifying the patcher format because the regular Pd will destroy
those attributes when they appear in almost any of the standard objects,
as well as the patchcords.

PS: for some reason again, i wrote this days ago and forgot to actually
send it.

________________________________________________________________
Mathieu Bouchard                       http://artengine.ca/matju