I have noticed that max’s javascript interpreter has E4X support. The problem is it seems to be limited. I don’t know if the limitation comes the size of the js file or it’s something else. I’m completely lost.

Here is a basic path to illustrate the idea:

----------begin_max5_patcher----------
264.3ocmREsaCBCC74juhH+LqB5VUa2a66XpZJ.YTWERPDiFaU8eefAVgJso
p8xIky14tyImkBH02ZBf5Y0qJg3rTHXpdBw3YATpayr5.2Fj1Pj2AQCkbMkn
yZHtVxUReCcK6.E8YkYPNHU6J.0gwxUZJ6H5Jdq1jQCcrY8p3H05mXLdB+YB
LmMjO8zCI6gdtKRYODcmQwY9na3onPlVVW3TPUX8oZaX0ov+Hnu6cjSWxwDd
oF0V32VA2Q72rsG293eF+cvLsC3W78mzM+rsBOHXQ2su2rz87KWUAeSc1jQG
WxQpq5maBD5zD18aXVS6VzzQLO2v0iGYJw7JO5nQSnNrvhxKxugGUmo.
-----------end_max5_patcher-----------

contents of globals.js used in the patcher:

inlets = 1;
outlets = 0;
autowatch = 1;

var g = new Global(“g_xml”);
g.xml =

function bang(){
post(g.xml.toString());
}

function create() {}

A friend is trying to use xml for it’s tree structure to play some videos non-linearly. Here is an example of a basic function that also uses E4X:
function get_video(){
var path = xml.section.(@name == arguments[0]).video.(@key ==
arguments[1]).@path.toString();
section = xml.section.(@name == arguments[0]).video.(@key ==
arguments[1]).@section.toString();
//post('your next section is ' + section);
outlet(0,”path”,path);
outlet(0,”section”,section);
}

arguments[0] is a string, the name of a section and arguments[1] is a key.

The HUGE problem is once I bang that globals.js object, Max crashes. That happens all the time, tested on 2 different machines. If I leave just half of the section nodes in, Max doesn’t crash.

Does anyone have an idea why that happens and what can I do go around the issue ?

Thank,
George

instead of:

I formatted the js file using TextMate, no luck.

The crash is pretty consistent.
If I use this much nodes:

‘
xml =

‘
It’s all fine.

If I add another node, like so:
‘
xml =

‘
Max crashes :(

?

I did try that, and even removed all returns and tabs…just wrote the xml as one long line:

‘xml =

That behaves exactly like the before, crashing :(

Any clues/ideas ?

I had a quick look at the SpiderMonkey, but I find it hard to track down if indeed my problem is a listed bug:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&component=Javascript+Engine
I’ve looked for ‘limit’ and ‘E4X’

This would be a major bug in SpiderMonkey though. Not sure if SpiderMonkey is used under the hood by actionscript, but the same code works well/doesn’t crash flash player.

Maybe there’s a problem with the text editor in Max and E4X.

Thanks for the hint.

But E4X was added in 1.6, right?

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/New_in_JavaScript_1.6

I guess that the pre 1.6 versions of SpiderMonkey contained an experimental implementation of E4X, and what you encountered is actually a bug in that version that was later fixed for the 1.6 release.

A workaround could be to use the Rhino interpreter instead, through an mxj object.

http://www.mozilla.org/rhino/

I will follow the documentation and try to see how I get along with Rhino :)

Thanks,
George

If you have the choice, strongly consider using JSON. It’s far easier to read in Javascript (you can just paste it into your code, it’s valid Javascript) and doesn’t have the “two sorts of containment” issue that makes XML such a drag.