[PD] Help with "pack" / lists

[Frank Barknecht]

Hallo,
cyborgk at nocturnalnoize.com hat gesagt: // cyborgk at nocturnalnoize.com wrote:

> 1. Why isn't [quarter( a symbol??? According to the manual it is, and I
> quote: 'Anything that is not a valid number os considered a
> symbol...Non-valid numbers which are read as symbols include things like
> "+5" and "0..6" as well as words and names such as "Zack" or "cat". The
> symbols "gore", "Gore", and "GORE" are all distinct.'

This is the part of the manual that is talking about object boxes.
Messages are slightly different, so you should read "2.3.1 anatomy of
a message" to learn more about symbol-messages. Or try
http://puredata.org/dev/PdMessages for my try at explaining lists,
symbols etc. Some more related docs are here:
http://puredata.org/dev/PdDefinitions/

> 2. In the attached patch, I added symbols as you suggested. Why do I get
> the output: "list setUnit quarter" for example, instead of just "setUnit
> quarter"? Where is this list coming from--pack by definition creates a
> list, so this behavior makes little sense. 

[pack] outputs real Pd lists, which have a "list" selector at front
unless the first element is a float. Everything is correct in your
patch. If you want a "setUnit"-meta-message without the list selector
you can split it off using [list trim] (pd>=0.39) or [route list]
(others).
 
> Oh, and I can't use [list append] because I'm trying to combine two
> symbols INTO a list, and list append doesn't like the symbol in the right
> inlet.

This isn't quite true: [list] and [list append] perfectly accept 
symbol- and meta-messages in both inlets. I suppose you are running a
Pd version which doesn't have the [list] objects yet. Older Pd
versions still allowed you to create a [list] object, but it was non
functional. 

> 3. How can I found out all this list stuff? It's undocumented in my PD
> version... I never heard of [list append] or [list prepend] before, they
> seem to work but I can't pull up any help files on them.

You need to update your Pd. If you cannot do this globally, you should
at least install some version of Pd-0.39 for testing purposes. [list]
is exxxxxtremely conventient. After you've tasted its sewwt odour, you
don't want to go back to list-less Pd again. 

"[list] for life." (Iggy Pop)

Ciao
-- 
 Frank Barknecht                 _ ______footils.org_ __goto10.org__