[PD] Understanding Selectors, Atoms, Lists ...

[Frank Barknecht]

Hallo,
hard off hat gesagt: // hard off wrote:

> also,
> 
>  [open ..... ..... (
> 
>  [;
>   sentdata $1 (
> 
>  [read /.../../aaaaa.wav table-xyz(
> 
> etc...
> 
> i agree that these things are not objects and not lists, so "meta
> message" sounds perfect to describe them.

Btw: I often use a little abstraction called "prepent.pd" with pd-0.39,
which will generate meta messages with a certain selector. Inside it
just consists of a mix of "prepend" and "trim" => "prepent": 

prepent.pd: 

  [inlet]        [inlet]
  |              |
  [list prepend $1]
  |
  [list trim]
  |
  [oulet]
  
I use this for example in front of netsend: 

  [prepent send]
  |
  [netsend]

Then I don't need to worry about the length of messages to send. 

One advantage of all this is, that while working on the message
*before* it gets to the "prepent", it always is a proper list-message
with a list-selector, because I start the whole message-working chain
with a [list] object that adds the list-selector. So I don't need to
worry about encountering a meta-message in between. 

I'd go as far to say that even when generating meta-messages it should
be best practice to start with a list-message and convert it to a meta
messages as late as possible. Unfortunatly this only really works with
pd-0.39 and/or the proper [list] object. [zl] or [prepend] - while
mighty - aren't as consistent when it comes to list- and
meta-messages.

Rant end. ;)

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