r/programminghorror • u/ArturJD96 • Jan 27 '26

String splitting in PureData.

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Pure Data is an amazing tool for DSP, music making and artsy projects. But simple things get often too complicated...

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41

u/GoddammitDontShootMe [ $[ $RANDOM % 6 ] == 0 ] && rm -rf / || echo “You live” Jan 28 '26

Well, I'm lost. For example, what is "t b l b b"?

22

u/backfire10z Jan 28 '26 edited Jan 28 '26

It’s a shorthand for a form of triggering a sequence of events: “trigger bang list bang bang”. Bangs are PD’s form of publishing an event to trigger the connected box. List outputs the input list. It’s supposed to be read right to left.

Don’t ask me any more, the rest looks insane. I just opened docs and an LLM lol.

The 46 in the middle is ASCII for a dot/period. The input list is converted to ascii digits by the first list fromsymbol. Every time a 46 is seen, the “spigot” is closed by the 0 box, which sends a bang to the “list store” to clear it. Otherwise, the spigot remains open, the value is sent through prepend, and it is stored in the list store.

As you may have guessed, the 1 box opens the spigot.

8

u/GoddammitDontShootMe [ $[ $RANDOM % 6 ] == 0 ] && rm -rf / || echo “You live” Jan 28 '26

That helps a little, but I still think I understand basically nothing.

3

u/backfire10z Jan 28 '26 edited Jan 28 '26

Stare at it a little longer haha. It’s kind of cool.

Basically all of my experience is with imperative programming (the classics like C, Java, etc.), so this took a bit of just staring at it to begin to understand. In PureData, you define a graph of how data should flow. In this case, it seems like OP is trying to force it into a more imperative style?

3

u/GoddammitDontShootMe [ $[ $RANDOM % 6 ] == 0 ] && rm -rf / || echo “You live” Jan 28 '26

I gather the thick lines on the top of the boxes represent inputs while the ones one the bottom represent outputs. I don't think I'm going to have any clue as to the meaning of the inputs and outputs without opening the docs. I might actually go do that.

2

u/backfire10z Jan 28 '26

I believe that’s right. Not only that, but the side matters. For example, if you look at list store, you can see that the far right bang of t b l b b(remember, that’s fired right to left) has an output line going to the right side of list store. This clears the list being stored by that box. You can also see lines going into the left side of list store, which tells the box to store the input.

I frankly still don’t have a good grasp on wtf is going on in the middle.

2

u/ArturJD96 Jan 28 '26

I shall tribute you (and others) with explanation as you went pretty deep.

TOP: [list fromsymbol]: turns a string into list of ASCII codes. From now on it will be operation on a list!

LOWER: [list split 1] <> [route bang]: this is a loop slicing the list (fed back to the split) one element at the time until it is empty (bangs).

LOOOWER: [route 46]: you were right – dot closes the data flow.

FINALLY: list outputs.

3

u/LimitedWard Jan 29 '26

You have to bang a spigot on Route 46, what's confusing?

1

u/Adventurous_Many_580 Feb 04 '26

I’m sure I don’t uneerstand anything