How to code a circular buffer in an external.

    enda.bates@gmail.com
    May 23 2006 | 5:17 pm
    Hey everybody, thanks for the help with my float inlet yesterday! I am now trying to add a circular buffer to my external. The buffer will need to hold something in the order of 2048 samples. Now Im thinking I need to create this buffer outside the perform routine as this routine only works in chunks of samples as per the Signal Vector size, right? So where do I create the array to store these samples, in the structure defn or in the new instance routine, or where? As far as I understand it the array/buffer will need to outside the perform routine so it can store samples from previous Signal Vectors. So i guess this needs to be a global variable that can be accessed from the perform routine, but i guess Im not sure where is the best place to do this code in an MSP external. Your help is greatly appreciated, cheers, enda
    • Mark Pauley
      May 23 2006 | 5:51 pm
      I think you should allocate the mem in your dsp function.
      Put a float* into your main object, like so:
      #define kNumSamplesInCircularBuffer 2048;
      typedef struct _MyObjName { t_pxobject xObj; // requred for msp int curReadIndex; int curWriteIndex;
      float* circularBuffer; } MyObjName;
      ...
      and then malloc a buffer and give it to your object like so:
      void MyObjName_dsp(MyObjName* inObj, t_signal **sp, short* count) {
      //allocate the buffer circularBuffer = (float*)malloc(sizeof(float) * kNumSamplesInCircularBuffer);
      //initialize the read and write index curReadIndex = 0; curWriteIndex = 0;
      //initialize the buffer with zeros bzero(circularBuffer, sizeof(float) * kNumSamplesInCircularBuffer); }
      ...
      and then free the buffer when you're done.
      void MyObjName_free(MyObjName* inObj) { dsp_free((t_pxobject*) xObj);
      free(circularBuffer);
      //for paranoia's sake I always zero out my structs after I free any malloc'd members bzero(inObj, sizeof(MyObjName)); }
      then inside of your process function, just make sure you don't access outside of the bounds of your buffer.
      _Mark