William Echard

I have a question about order of execution when [send/receive] or [pattrforward] objects are being used. Let's say I have an object whose outlet branches right and left, with each of those branches doing a few things and then ending in a [send] or a [pattrforward]. And then there are some other events triggered elsewhere in the patch or in a subpatcher as a result of the [send] or [pattrforward]. Does the depth-first rule mean that all the distant events triggered by the right-branch [send] or [pattrforward] will be executed before the left branch is triggered? Or will the left branch trigger as soon as the right branch gets to the local ending point (i.e., to the [send] or the [pattrforward] object), making it necessary to take other measures if I want to be sure to control the timing in the more distant related events? Any insight would be great, thanks...

depth-first-and-sendreceive

Thanks Andro -- I'll keep that in mind for troubleshooting if things stop working as I scale it up. I'd still be interested though if anyone can answer the original question, just from the perspective of understanding a bit more about how Max organizes program flow.

Quick test patch, and check your Max Window to read the order.

Depth first.
Quick test patch, and check your Max Window to read the order.


Thanks Jean-Francois, that makes it very clear.

even if you know that it is bottom to top, right to left, subpatcher to patcher, it is still very hard to tell exactly in a bigger project, not to speak of poly or scripted parts of a patch.

Possibly not very likely, but at really major updates (like Max 4->5 or 6->7) not impossible. Still, depending on fire order of receives is not "best practice."

Thanks again -- is there a tutorial or help file which explains best practices for controlling the order of execution in larger patches?

The [trigger] object is the big guy for this. I'm not sure where it is in the current Tutorials. But check out the .maxhelp and/or the object reference in detail, then take a look at what's in the list of Related Objects, and you should know pretty much what there is to know.

I'll look closer at [trigger] and the related objects, thanks.

Depth-first and send/receive