pack/unpack are not designed to handle list of variable size. Why do you need pack/unpack in the first place?

ahh.

I was packing function~ objects outside a poly~ to control function~ objects inside a poly to generate an envelope going into a curve~.

I think what ej means here is: why don't you just pass the list directly?

M

many function objects need to go into a poly. i was packing them all up

"packing them all up", eh? have a look at zl.join, then. But I'd append function names (like, function1, function2 etc) and then use route inside the poly.