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

Mathieu Bouchard matju at artengine.ca
Sat Sep 10 00:20:51 CEST 2011


On Tue, 6 Sep 2011, Frank Barknecht wrote:

> 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
> But this is nothing unusual, it's the same for pointers, gemlists, 
> pdp-packets, probably GF grids etc.

Well, almost.

GF reparses its objectbox arguments for parens and commas. With commas it 
makes init-messages. With parens it makes A_BINBUF atoms, which are nested 
lists (can you say « list atom » ?)

That's happening by default for all the classes, except that a class can 
turn off this behaviour.

Then there is another step.

a GF constructor that receives an A_BINBUF where a Grid* is declared, 
converts that binbuf to a grid, so that « 2 3 4 s # 5 6 7 » means « make a 
grid of shorts (s) of 2 by 3 by 4, and for all elements (in usual order), 
fill with 5,6,7,5,6,7,5,6,7,... ». (there are also simpler syntaxes for 
simpler cases)

GF used to also parse parens in messageboxes, but that is now gone. 
However, all grid-accepting inlets also accept list-messages and convert 
them to grids using the same syntax (except the parens).

Of course, GF does not modify the code of pd's messagebox class. (so 
far...)

  _______________________________________________________________________
| Mathieu Bouchard ---- tél: +1.514.383.3801 ---- Villeray, Montréal, QC


More information about the Pd-list mailing list