Hi,
On Sun, Nov 04, 2012 at 05:48:23PM -0800, Jonathan Wilkes wrote:
[list of the table names( | |Â Â Â [r midi_note_number] |Â Â / |Â [set $1( | / [ ( |
If the essence of "seeing the light" regarding Pd Vanilla is that it's more efficient to use what's already there to read/write/share patches, I don't see why you'd prefer the abstraction to such a straightforward idiom to solve your task.
For m_symbolarray the main reason was speed and as a side-effect allowing "holes" in the array. Accessing an array (even one in a data structure) is a lot faster than sending around a long list every time a lookup is needed. m_symbolarray made a patch run nicely on an iPhone that was totally overloading the device before.
Of course often you just can get away with the usual approach that you outlined above, and please do so, if you don't run into problems.
But if a) the number of names (i.e. the list length) gets large or b) you have to activate this idiom many, many times, you can hit a wall. And it's quite easy to make a) and b) with sample players if you play polyphonic music with many instruments in it. Here m_symbolarray is one way out.
Ciao
Frank Barknecht _ ______footils.org__