with trial&error i came up with a quite complicated patch for the task to convert a MAC addres in the form 00-ab-7d- etc into it's equivalent without the '-' character.
any comment is welcomed
rolf
#N canvas 104 217 569 343 10; #X obj -94 16 symbol2list -; #X obj -75 125 makefilename %.2s; #X obj -94 45 list-drip; #X obj -55 103 makefilename %.02d; #X obj -108 163 symbol; #X obj -94 74 t b a a; #X obj -39 164 t l; #X obj -129 223 list; #X obj -129 269 list2symbol; #X obj -108 190 list prepend; #X msg -66 243 symbol; #X obj -66 217 loadbang; #X obj -23 76 s end_drip; #X obj -185 185 r end_drip; #X obj -129 304 print; #X text -22 242 -- get rid of the blanks; #X msg -94 -12 symbol 00-11-ab-7d-85-04; #X text 64 98 --makefilename %.2d: in case of a number restores leading zero , in case of a symbol gives a zero.; #X text 23 139 --makefilename %.2s:in case of a number no output , in case of a symbol overwrites the unwanted zero.; #X text 68 -14 --example of the expected input; #X connect 0 0 2 0; #X connect 1 0 4 1; #X connect 2 0 5 0; #X connect 2 1 12 0; #X connect 3 0 4 1; #X connect 4 0 9 0; #X connect 5 0 4 0; #X connect 5 1 1 0; #X connect 5 2 3 0; #X connect 6 0 9 1; #X connect 7 0 8 0; #X connect 8 0 14 0; #X connect 9 0 6 0; #X connect 9 0 7 1; #X connect 10 0 8 1; #X connect 11 0 10 0; #X connect 13 0 7 0; #X connect 16 0 0 0;