Am 14. Februar 2026 08:59:27 MEZ schrieb Patrice Colet colet.patrice@gmail.com:
Le 13 févr. 2026 à 20:36, Christof Ressi info@christofressi.com a écrit :
Pd "pointers" are safe handles for accessing a particular "data structure" member (which might be a "scalar" or an "array element"). They are automatically invalidated when the underlying data structure changes.
Does it mean that in PureData pointers aren't variables that stores memory addresses ?
they are (if we ignore the "variables" word in your question).
but so are signals and tables and whatnot.
they do not reference "arbitrary" memory locations (as you might expect from the name "pointer").
if you look at the implementation of Pd, then they (of course) are real pointers, but that is abstracted away (and not accessible) when working on a patch level. some externals might be tempted to use the A_POINTER atom for generic pointers, but that is actually a bad idea.
mfg.sfg.jfd IOhannes