Hi chaps, I've come up against something I can't solve without a deeper understanding of pd's internal structure, I wonder if anyone can help. I'm trying to build patches that know about each instance of themselves when called as an abstraction, without the specification of creation arguments to identify multiple instances of the same patch. Basically I want to read the list of the ultimate parent from memory, like you would if you read the pd patch into a text editor such as emacs. I often edit patches in such an editor,and I find it allows access to information about the patch in a sequential form that is hard to get in PD (how many obj(ects) there are and in what order, what they are etc.) and now I am trying to build patches that extend themselves in realtime, I need to be able to read the patch I'm in. If there are any PD builtin functions or symbols I can use to do this, I'd love to find out what they are! I may be missing something obvious, but an enclosed example might help. Of course this doesn't work - [s sinclick] and [cup] don't work because by the time you get to use them, they have all [loadbang] ed. But, how does one object know it is the first, the 2nd etc? And how do they send the number to the next instance? Well, another question imminent. This will unlock a big can of good worms for me! #ed Check out the brand new EP by Lone Shark: "Synchromatic" at http://www.pyramidtransmissions.com/store. Available through iTunes from December 8th