pack versus message to control
I was pulling my hair out while the pack didnt want to control a line~ object
It seems that that after the first argument there has to be a space unlike in message .
So message would be intital value '1, 0 252' in pack it should be '1 , 0 250'
I haven't come across this in the manual

[print] is still the #1 debugging tool in Max.
Also, try to copy-compress your code (Edit menu) then paste in your forum post.
Yet I've go another issue
The first screenshot shows an unpack with initial value of 1 , the 2 and 3d arguments are floats , red value controlling destination value ( in this case 0.0) and blue box = time
Works fine
Now lets also replace our initial value (start amplitude ) with a float , controlled by the green value box ( second screenshot ), the value does not change at all
What am I doing wrong here ??


Then, when if comes to your question: the comma in message results in 2 separate messages being output.
The comma in [pack] is another element, I don't see how it would be useful in your case.
comma... has nothing to do there, yeah... that is a bit difficult in the beginning.
but we love the [message] object, dont we?
it gave us a way how to communicate about messages in max in the forums.
"1., 0. 399."
is the same as "1." followed by "0. 399."
the closest pack/list/pak analogy patching would be:
[pack 0. 0.]
[t l 1.]
[line]
and once more, with [pack] you run in another exceptional behaviour; this object requires an actual number to set the type of message, not i and f like most other objects.
but you still can use "s" for symbols, because "s" is a symbol anyway.
when i want to identify a variable in a pack which also has constants, i often use "777" as default.
to send a message which should contain comma,
pack the 3 floats and insert message $1 \, $2 $3
in front of line~
using pack instead of pak, would trigger only when 1st value changes...
Thanks guys really appreciated