Ullstein

although the Max Console got better in helping to find mistakes in the patch there is still one thing that is cryptic. When starting patches that I made I almost always a series of messages : "$" variable out of range (1) 

I can click on them as on other error messages, but it won't show, which "$" variable is out of range. It only happens on start of the patch, once the patch is running it does not reappear. So I guess that it has something to do with variables that have no value yet, but of course would like to get rid of it. Any ideas?

although the Max Console got better in helping to find mistakes in the patch there is still one thing that is cryptic. When starting patches that I made I almost always a series of messages : "$" variable out of range (1) 
I can click on them as on other error messages, but it won't show, which "$" variable is out of range. It only happens on start of the patch, once the patch is running it does not reappear. So I guess that it has something to do with variables that have no value yet, but of course would like to get rid of it. Any ideas?
Thanks


although the Max Console got better in helping to find mistakes in the patch there is still one thing that is cryptic. When starting patches

""-variable-out-of-range-1-message-in-max-console

For posterity... you can try hunting these down in a text editor which supports RegExp searching, especially if you can read many files at once (like SublimeText, BBEdit). Basically open the file/files you want to search and look for matches of this regular expression:

"maxclass"\s:\s"newobj",\s[^\}]*"text"\s:\s"[^\}"]+[^\\]{2}\$\d+[^\}"]*"\s

It looks for Max objects that aren't comments or messages (where $X is allowed) to see if they have an unescaped instance of $X.

For example, [sprintf $4] will cause a "$" variable out of range (4) error, but [sprintf \\$4] would not. Normally I end up with these errors in [if] or [expr] objects.

For posterity... you can try hunting these down in a text editor which supports RegExp searching, especially if you can read many files at once (like SublimeText, BBEdit).  Basically open the file/files you want to search and look for matches of this regular expression:

For example, [sprintf $4] will cause a  "$" variable out of range (4) error, but [sprintf \\$4] would not.  Normally I end up with these errors in [if] or [expr] objects.

It's always a good idea when writing code to consider what will happen at load time if uninitialized values could cause errors and to set initial values using 

. My current project has 18 patches in total and most have an entry point (using a 

 in the patch that sets all the other patches up. It can be tedious but makes for a happier life in the end.

image.png

This is my loader patch above. Don't worry about the details of what it's doing but it initialises everything in my project. It starts with the loadbang in the top left corner. The red objects are send/receive links to most of the other patches in the project. The columns across the top initialise various settings and displays on my controller units. Then at the bottom there is a controlled sequence of reset links to other critical patches that need initialisation before use. I have had to work quite hard at making sure that the sequence in which this all happens allows everything to work without flagging up any errors or unexpected actions when I then run the two applications that it all interfaces to.

It's always a good idea when writing code to consider what will happen at load time if uninitialized values  could cause errors and to set initial values using loadbang or loadmess or by defining parameter values in the inspector. My current project has 18 patches in total and most have an entry point (using a send and receive pair) triggered in sequence from a loadbang in the patch that sets all the other patches up. It can be tedious but makes for a happier life in the end.

Thanks both of you for your advice. I will check my patches and in any case use this method in the future. Many thanks

"$" variable out of range (1) message in Max Console