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

[Hans-Christoph Steiner]

On Sep 7, 2011, at 5:46 PM, Jonathan Wilkes wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
>
>> From: Hans-Christoph Steiner <hans at at.or.at>
>> To: Jonathan Wilkes <jancsika at yahoo.com>
>> Cc: fbar <fbar at footils.org>; "pd-list at iem.at" <pd-list at iem.at>
>> Sent: Tuesday, September 6, 2011 4:04 PM
>> Subject: Re: [PD] (breaking symbols) was Re: find a list of numbers  
>> in a text file
>>
>>
>> On Sep 6, 2011, at 12:30 PM, Jonathan Wilkes wrote:
>>
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>
>>>> From: fbar <fbar at footils.org>
>>>> To: "pd-list at iem.at" <pd-list at iem.at>
>>>> Cc:
>>>> Sent: Tuesday, September 6, 2011 3:53 AM
>>>> Subject: Re: [PD] (breaking symbols) was Re: find a list of  
>>>> numbers in
>> a text file
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Sep 06, 2011 at 09:44:33AM +0200, Frank Barknecht wrote:
>>>>> I'm not sure what "appears in the patch" should mean.
>> It
>>>> definitly means
>>>>> that numercial-symbol selectors don't get shown and cannot be
>> written
>>>>> into a patch, so you cannot use them in the editor where
>> "real"
>>>>> selectors should be written, like in [route].
>>>>
>>>> Forgot to add: Of course it is possible and legal to "use"
>> numerical
>>>> or
>>>> non-printable symbols as selectors, but they have to be constructed
>>>> dynamically and cannot be typed, in accordance with the  
>>>> restrictions
>>>> mentioned in the manual. Instead something like this can be used:
>>>>
>>>>    [makefilename %d]
>>>>    |
>>>>    |                  [makefilename %d]
>>>>    |                  |
>>>>    [select symbol-dummy]
>>>>
>>>> I used [makefilename %d] a lot in the rj library's [m_chorddict]
>>>> dictionary for chords, where some chord names are proper symbols,  
>>>> like
>>>> "m7", while others are floats like 7. The float-names get
>> converted to
>>>> symbols internally to look up chord notes in a data structure array
>>>> keyed by symbols only (using [m_symbolarray]).
>>>
>>> At what point are you using numerical-symbol selectors?  Everything
>> you've
>>> described has the selector 'symbol'.
>>>
>>> If you mean you let the user send symbols or floats as the key and  
>>> convert
>>> internally, that's _exactly_ what I'm proposing.
>>
>> I guess I'm not clear on your proposal.  Is it that a "symbol"
>> selector automatically converts things to a symbol?  That makes a  
>> lot of sense,
>> and would help with other issues.  Then you could also make symbols  
>> with spaces,
>> like:
>>
>> [symbol 43(
>> [symbol /home/hans/My Documents(
>
> Well, that's something I've wanted for a long time.  But what I am  
> proposing has to do with
> selectors, not symbol messages.
>
> Problem: convert from symbol-atom to float-atom
> Proposal: if a selector happens to be in a form that can be  
> interpreted by the
> naked eye as a valid Pd float, and the object receiving the message  
> has a float method
> (and no anything method), then send a float to the object.
>
> [r infinite-expressivity]
> |
> [1( <- float
> |
> [makefilename %d] <-- converted to symbol message (and the message  
> arg is convert to a symbol-atom)
> |
> [list trim] <-- now we have a message with the selector 1 and no  
> arguments
> |
> [route float] <-- seriously, it's a symbol-atom, not a float
>              |
> ------------+
> |
> [float] <-- my proposal: give [float] a float-atom instead of a  
> symbol-atom in this case
> |
> [route float]
> |
> [set $1, bang(
> |
> [s infinite-expressivity]
>
> But if there were a really nice quoting mechanism, that would  
> probably be much clearer.

Yes, I agree that [float] and [symbol] should also do conversions.  A  
good example would be Python's str() and float().


>> etc.
>>
>> A quoting mechanism would also help.  We could probably get away  
>> with only
>> \.  For example, \ for spaces, like:
>>
>> [symbol /home/hans/My\ Documents(
>> [symbol I\ like\ lots\ of\ \ \ \ \ spaces(
>> [symbol commas\,\ in\ symbols(
>> [symbol semi-colon\;\ in\ symbols(
>
> That looks really ugly to me.  What's wrong with "quotes"?

The nice part would be that it would only add one special character,  
\, which is currently not allowed anyway.  Adding "" or '' or ``  
quotes means some kind of backwards incompatibility, since '"` are  
currently all valid characters to have in a symbol.  Another easy  
option would be to use

I think this would be made much easier if the symbol selector forced  
the message to be a symbol, then you could do:

[symbol /home/hans/My Documents(
[symbol I like lots of\ \ \ \ \ spaces(
[symbol commas\, in symbols(
[symbol semi-colon\; in symbols(
[symbol \43(
[symbol \-21343(
[symbol \-0.2e59(

Then you'd only need the \ when its in other places, like:

[route \43]

>> And last but least, and its already in there:
>>
>> [symbol \43(
>> [symbol \-21343(
>> [symbol \-0.2e59(
>>
>> Anything that just \ couldn't cover?
>
> [openpanel] <- outputs /home/hans/My documents
> |
> [set symbol $1(
> |
> [ ( <-- What's printed here? ...My documents or ...My\ documents?


Depends on what the symbol selector does.  If the symbol selector  
forces the rest of the message to be a symbol, then there wouldn't  
need to be any backslashes there.  But it would probably be a good  
idea to have them there anyway.

.hc


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