[PD] return a list of externals

Frank Barknecht fbar at footils.org
Fri Sep 10 20:21:52 CEST 2010


On Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 10:55:27AM -0700, Kim Cascone wrote:
> is there a way to get a list of all the externals used in a patch?
> other than by hand of course...
> I see nothing in pd --help

Yeah, that would be a cool feature, but it's not there AFAIK. It's also 
a bit tricky. For one thing there are nameclashes: If I use a [urn] or
[scale] or [prepend], from where does it come? Cyclone, maxlib, zexy,
Gem? Most of these are even incompatible.

And then there are abstractions vs. externals vs. loader-defined objects
like those you can write with pyext or pdlua. If I make a prepend.pd
abstraction that just wraps [list prepend]--[list trim], I have created
another [prepend] just for me. (I usually call that abstraction
"prepent.pd" but you get the idea.) 

So the best thing for now is to document what you use, either in comments, a
README or with [declare] rsp. [import]. If it's a foreign patch, you
probably will have to manually dissect it. 

What I do is avoid externals where possible and bundle abstractions into
a project. urn, prepend or scale from maxlib can be build as
abstractions that can easily be bundled. But abstractions vs. externals
can easily turn into a religious war and for many things you need
externals, so a better solution would be needed.

Ciao
-- 
Frank



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