Thanks, so simple, so powerful :) Works perfectly!

Popesz

On Tue, Nov 26, 2019 at 3:42 PM Claude Heiland-Allen claude@mathr.co.uk wrote:

Hi,

On 26/11/2019 14:12, Csaba Láng wrote:

...

Dear list,

I want to open from a pd patch a pd patch withe the message:

[; pd open $1.pd /path-topatch;(

With simple naming of the patches such as numbers, works beautifully. However if the name is a word, I cannot open them. What kind of command should I send to this message to make it work?

just to be clear, if I want to open cat.pd, a message [cat( will not make it happen.

try [symbol cat( or [list cat( instead of just [cat(

for more details read the fine manual, specifically about messages and selectors https://puredata.info/docs/manuals/pd/x2.htm#s3.1

Claude

https://mathr.co.uk

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Do apoligize, both symbol and list works fine!

On Tue, Nov 26, 2019 at 3:58 PM Csaba Láng langcsaba@gmail.com wrote:

list cat works, for some reason symbol does not. But what if I have a lot of patches to open, and not only cat :) how can I make it interchangeable? [list $1( what command should get to open any other namings?

On Tue, Nov 26, 2019 at 3:51 PM Roman Haefeli reduzent@gmail.com wrote:

...

On Tue, 2019-11-26 at 15:12 +0100, Csaba Láng wrote:

...

Dear list,

I want to open from a pd patch a pd patch withe the message:

[; pd open $1.pd /path-topatch;(

[...]

...

just to be clear, if I want to open cat.pd, a message [cat( will not make it happen.

Use [symbol cat(.

Read about Pd's message types: https://puredata.info/docs/manuals/pd/x2.htm#s3.1

Roman

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• IOhannes m zmölnig zmoelnig@iem.at [2019-11-26 16:03]:

Am 26. November 2019 15:49:07 MEZ schrieb Roman Haefeli reduzent@gmail.com:

...

On Tue, 2019-11-26 at 15:12 +0100, Csaba Láng wrote:

...

Dear list,

I want to open from a pd patch a pd patch withe the message:

[; pd open $1.pd /path-topatch;(

[...]

...

just to be clear, if I want to open cat.pd, a message [cat( will not make it happen.

Use [symbol cat(.

and if you have many, many files (msgboxes) you can convert (almost) any selector toa symbol with [symbol]:

jumping on this I must admit that I never understood when a selector such as "symbol" or "list" has to be provided explicitely, or to be trimmed off.

From https://puredata.info/docs/manuals/pd/x2.htm#s3.1 I understand that

the message [1( has an implicit selector of "float" and is equivalent to [float 1(

Also the message [1 2 3( has an implicit selector of "list" and is equivalent to [list 1 2 3(

It seems the selector is always a symbol (one or many characters without whitespace nor semicolons nor commas).

It seems symbols themselves have no selector(?) as [foo( seems to be the selector "foo" itself and is not the same as [symbol foo( at least not when printing to the console window.

Now is this why [cat( in the original poster's question did not have a selector "symbol" and one had to be added eg. with [symbol]. Was this because it was used in another message box or in a $1 substitution?

A message [stop( to a [delay] object does not require "stop" to be prefixed by a "symbol" selector.

Why does this still seem a mixup of symbols with and symbols without a "symbol" selector to me? Can this be clarified somehow?

Thanks to everyone, P

On 11/26/19 4:59 PM, Peter P. wrote:

• IOhannes m zmölnig zmoelnig@iem.at [2019-11-26 16:03]:

...

Am 26. November 2019 15:49:07 MEZ schrieb Roman Haefeli reduzent@gmail.com:

...

On Tue, 2019-11-26 at 15:12 +0100, Csaba Láng wrote:

...

Dear list,

I want to open from a pd patch a pd patch withe the message:

[; pd open $1.pd /path-topatch;(

[...]

...

just to be clear, if I want to open cat.pd, a message [cat( will not make it happen.

Use [symbol cat(.

and if you have many, many files (msgboxes) you can convert (almost) any selector toa symbol with [symbol]:

jumping on this I must admit that I never understood when a selector such as "symbol" or "list" has to be provided explicitely, or to be trimmed off.

# anatomy of a message

i think it is pretty easy:

• any message in pd-land consists of a single selector and any number of

atoms (including none).

• an atom can be a number, a symbol, a gpointer and "other things"
• a selector must always be a symbol.

some special selectors need a fixed number of atoms, of a fixed type ("float" and "symbol" require exactly 1 atom of the resp. type; "bang" requires exactly 0 atoms); but these are special cases.

dollar-arguments in msgboxes (e.g. [open $1.wav() always refer to the atoms.

## implicit selectors

if you have a msgbox [foo bar 1(, then this is a message with the selector "foo" and two atoms, a symbol "bar" and a number "1".

if you have a msgbox [1(, then the 1st element would be "1" (a number). since messages must always start with a selector (a symbol), it cannot start with the number "1". and Pd implicitely adds a default selector to this message. since the msg only consists of a single number atom, the implicitely added selector is "float". if you have a msgbox [1 bar foo(, we also miss a (symbol) selector, but the "float" selector requires a single atom (and our message has 3 atoms, once we add a selector), so Pd adds a "list" selector.

# why do we need selectors?

so why are messages like they are in the first place? each object in Pd has a number of methods (functions that interact with the internal state of the object). objects and methods are something we know from object-oriented programming (C++, ...) in Pd, objects communicate via messages - and communication boils down to calling methods in other objects. so messages need some way to encode which method of the downstream object is being called: and this is what the selector does. e.g. an object might have a method for messages with the "foo"-selector and messages with the "bang" selector, but no messages with the "float" selector.

so if you want to stop a delay, you want to call the "stop" method of the [delay] object, thus sending a [stop( message (selector is "stop", no atoms).

mdsar IOhannes

On Tue, 2019-11-26 at 18:33 +0100, IOhannes m zmölnig wrote:

# anatomy of a message

i think it is pretty easy:

• any message in pd-land consists of a single selector and any number

of atoms (including none).

• an atom can be a number, a symbol, a gpointer and "other things"
• a selector must always be a symbol.

some special selectors need a fixed number of atoms, of a fixed type ("float" and "symbol" require exactly 1 atom of the resp. type; "bang" requires exactly 0 atoms); but these are special cases.

dollar-arguments in msgboxes (e.g. [open $1.wav() always refer to the atoms.

## implicit selectors

if you have a msgbox [foo bar 1(, then this is a message with the selector "foo" and two atoms, a symbol "bar" and a number "1".

if you have a msgbox [1(, then the 1st element would be "1" (a number). since messages must always start with a selector (a symbol), it cannot start with the number "1". and Pd implicitely adds a default selector to this message. since the msg only consists of a single number atom, the implicitely added selector is "float". if you have a msgbox [1 bar foo(, we also miss a (symbol) selector, but the "float" selector requires a single atom (and our message has 3 atoms, once we add a selector), so Pd adds a "list" selector.

# why do we need selectors?

so why are messages like they are in the first place? each object in Pd has a number of methods (functions that interact with the internal state of the object). objects and methods are something we know from object-oriented programming (C++, ...) in Pd, objects communicate via messages - and communication boils down to calling methods in other objects. so messages need some way to encode which method of the downstream object is being called: and this is what the selector does. e.g. an object might have a method for messages with the "foo"- selector and messages with the "bang" selector, but no messages with the "float" selector.

so if you want to stop a delay, you want to call the "stop" method of the [delay] object, thus sending a [stop( message (selector is "stop", no atoms).

This sums up the nature of Pd's message much more comprehensively than what can be found in Pd's own HTML documentation, I find at least.

Roman