[PD] the fastest way to read/write a lot of information from memory/hard disk

[Claude Heiland-Allen]

hard off wrote:
> i have a couple of sequencers with 16 steps and about 5 parameters for each
> step
> , and then a bunch of synths and drum machines running.
> 
> 
> i have always used textfile for saving sequence and control data for such
> setups, but if i have a hundred patterns or more, it gets really slow.  i
> guess its something to do with the way textfile accesses the hard disk.
> it's just not very efficient for large amounts of data.
> 
> what are my other options?

Quick solution would be to put the files on a ram disk, on linux this is 
tmpfs, and usually there is already /dev/shm/ mounted with that filesystem.

Other solution might be to have one big file to contain everything, 
rather than hundreds of files one for each pattern.  But then using 
[textfile] would be limited.



I'm working on a state-saving system in Lua, when that's finished it 
might be an option - it's designed to keep everything in memory in a 
structured way (like a virtual filesystem tree).  It's nowhere near 
ready for use yet, and it might take a while.  The idiomatic use would 
be to do something like:

[nbx]X[lagoon /some/path/with/a/key]

then the number box value would be saved/restored/broadcast to other 
[lagoon] objects with the same /some/path/with/a/key , then something 
like (not implemented yet..):

"copy /some/path/presets/preset1 /some/path/live/synth1"
  |
[lagoon]

to restore presets or the reverse order to save presets.


Claude
-- 
http://claudiusmaximus.goto10.org