Jack Truskowski

Hi guys, new to Max and am hoping to get some help on a problem I'm facing:

I'm trying to write an external that will receive pointers to 2 objects (through 2 inputs) and make an array that combines objects of those objects. I'm working in C in Xcode. Here's a visual that might be more clear:

What I want to achieve is an array that looks like this: {BoidObject1, BoidObject2, BoidObject3, BoidObject4}. The documentation on externals is so spotty I haven't been able to find much. Can anyone point me to a resource or help get me started on this? I've read Eric Lyon's book on max externals, and his multy~ external seems to be along the same lines of what I'm doing, but I can't figure out how to generalize it to work on things other than audio samples. Thanks!

FlockObject 1{
     BoidObject1
     BoidObject2
}
FlockObject 2{
    BoidObject3
    BoidObject4
}

What I want to achieve is an array that looks like this: {BoidObject1, BoidObject2, BoidObject3, BoidObject4}. The documentation on externals is so spotty I haven't been able to find much. Can anyone point me to a resource or help get me started on this? I've read Eric Lyon's book on max externals, and his multy~ external seems to be along the same lines of what I'm doing, but I can't figure out how to generalize it to work on things other than audio samples. Thanks!


max-externals-concatenating-arrays-objects

 through the wires to your external , perhaps u are talking about 

 bound object entity of such . Dont know Eric's examples at all , but u may at first look at the 

 SDK folder . It demonstrates of how u can use 

 to store/manipulate data . That would also suit 

 Another good example of binding and collecting objects is in 

If we are still on the same topic , then I would also consider use of a dictionary 

 container for similar purposes (that also lets u pass dictionaries of objects around the environment) . concatenation would be a matter of resizing , shifting , copying memory of your items container, as u would do with plain array . Take a look at the 

If by any chance you are talking about something else , I would love to hear from you as this is interesting topic .

Hi !
not quite sure how u want to pass pointers through the wires to your external , perhaps u are talking about unique_symbol and s_thing bound object entity of such . Dont know Eric's examples at all , but u may at first look at the advanced/linky example inside source SDK folder . It demonstrates of how u can use linkedlist to store/manipulate data . That would also suit t_atom , t_object pointers .

#edit Another good example of binding and collecting objects is in source/patcher/sheep and shepherd , where hashtab is used as a advantage #

If we are still on the same topic , then I would also consider use of a dictionary t_dict container for similar purposes (that also lets u pass dictionaries of objects around the environment) . concatenation would be a matter of resizing , shifting , copying memory of your items container, as u would do with plain array . Take a look at the sysmem methods listed in SDK documentation .

If by any chance you are talking about something else , I would love to hear from you as this is interesting topic .


Thanks for the help! That was exactly what I was looking for, however I decided to abandon the idea of passing pointers in favor of storing the data in a jitter matrix and passing that

by the way , take a look at the Dictionary and its passing API in SDK (for the future) . U can pass data structures around the max environment and do all sort of maintaining's .

https://cycling74.com/sdk/MaxSDK-7.0.3/html/group__dictionary.html

https://cycling74.com/sdk/MaxSDK-7.0.3/html/group__dictobj.html

by the way , take a look at the Dictionary and its passing API in SDK (for the future) . U can pass data structures around the max environment and do all sort of maintaining's .
https://cycling74.com/sdk/MaxSDK-7.0.3/html/group__dictionary.html
https://cycling74.com/sdk/MaxSDK-7.0.3/html/group__dictobj.html .


Max Externals -- Concatenating arrays of objects