[PD] Is this considered normal operation?

[Mike McGonagle]

Hello all,

I recently returned to using Pure Data, and in trying to consolidate
some of the things that I am doing, I started to create a directory
structure of my abstractions and externals. One thing that I noticed
(by accident) is that once I have loaded an external using the full
directory name, it is then subsequently available by just referencing
the name of the external, without the full directory name.

Is this something that is intentional? Is this something that can be
used to, in effect, create a "library" of externals for various
different platforms? I can see this working by loading all the
necessary externals by their full directory paths, and then the *.pd
files that use those externals would just call it by the name of the
external.

How can name clashes be prevented? Can that only be stopped by giving
the full directory path to the external?

Thanks,

Mike