[PD] use of 0$-

[Josh Steiner]

pd/doc/1.manual/x2.htm


      2.6.5. dollar signs

In message or object boxes, message arguments starting with a dollar 
sign and a number (like "$1" or "$3-bazoo") are variables which are 
substituted with values supplied as part of the environment the message 
is passed in. In the case of message boxes, the environment consists of 
the arguments of the "list" message (possibly extrapolated from "bang," 
"float," or other) that the message box is responding to. Thus, if a 
message box gets "23 skidoo" and if it contains the text, "$2 until $1," 
out comes the message, "skidoo until 23."

Object boxes contain text which forms a message to be sent to Pd to 
create and initialize the object. Here, $1, etc., are taken from the 
context in which the patch was loaded. When the patch is a new document 
or opened from a file the "$" variables are undefined. But if the patch 
is an abstraction (see the next section) they are taken from the 
abstractions' creation arguments.

Constructions such as "$1-x" are expanded by string concatenation. This 
is the mechanism for making local variables. In particular, $0 in an 
abstraction is a counter which is guaranteed to be unique to that 
abstraction, so sends and receives with names like "$0-bear" can be used 
as local send/receive pairs.

Note that the expansion of variables such as $0 and $1 only works at the 
beginning of the symbol; so, for instance, "rats-$1" will not be 
expanded. Occasionally you may want to have double or triple 
substitutions; this can be done one stage at a time by nesting 
abstractions (with each subpatch adding its own $-variable to the 
beginning of a symbol and passing that on as argument to a further 
abstraction.)

For example, if you want to get dog-food, dog-ears, and cat-food, for 
example, have an abstraction "a1" that invokes an abstraction "a2" 
twice, as "a2 $1-food" and "a2 $1-ears", and then in a third patch call 
a1 twice, as "a1 cat" and "a1 dog". Inside the four "a2" copioes, $1 
will evaluate to "dog-food", "cat-food", "dog-ears", and "cat-ears".




daniel wrote:

>hi list
>
>is there a place where I can read about the use of 0$- names?
>
>thanx in advance
>
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