[PD] (breaking symbols) was Re: find a list of numbers in a text file

Frank Barknecht fbar at footils.org
Tue Sep 6 08:12:15 CEST 2011


Hi,

On Mon, Sep 05, 2011 at 02:34:30PM -0400, Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:
> 
> On Sep 5, 2011, at 2:06 PM, Frank Barknecht wrote:
> >Here this sentence is true, but you know that not every data entity in
> >Pd can be used in object boxes as name or argument, while most things
> >that looks like a number will become one here.
> 
> I agree that the implementation does not match the descriptions in
> the manual. 

We do not agree, because what I tried to say is that the implementation
*does* match the description! :) In the Pd editor, i.e. in objects
boxes, message boxes etc., certain things that look like a number will
be converted to a number. ("+1" won't).

> That's what is in important here.  Yes, its possible to
> generate any kind of symbols using certain techniques, but it is not
> possible to generate any kind of symbol using any kind of symbol
> generation. 

It is not possible to generate any kind of numercial symbol using the
editor, and that's what the manual says. It's possible to generate
"t_symbol"s using other techniques, if you need them, for example to get
the string ".123" without it becoming "0.123". But this is nothing
unusual, it's the same for pointers, gemlists, pdp-packets, probably GF
grids etc.: You cannot "edit" these into a message box, but there are
many objects that still will accept and create them. 

> Things that expect symbols would interpret the message from
> [makefilename %d] as a symbol, and things that expect floats would
> interpret the message from [makefilename %d] as a float.  So the
> kind of thing I'm talking about would be like this:
> 
> [makefilename %d]
> |
> [float]
> 
> Then having the patch rely on the "error: float: no method for
> 'symbol'" error that is normally generated in that case. 

Well, it prints an error because there *is* an error in the patch. The
author should never have converted a float to a symbol and expect to
still do float calculations with it. 

Here are two similar errors: 

 [symbol three(
 |
 [+ four]

Ciao
-- 
Frank



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