Classes for Patches and Patchbanks

[Godlike-Productions]

This is the method that I've pretty much standardized for storing patches with associated information and banks of patches.

I use these for librarians, for example.

-- Intialize Classes
defaultSysex = {0xf0,0x00,0x00,0x2f,0x03,0x02,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x09,0x00,0x0c,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x0b,0x02,0x06,0x02,0x0f,0x0f,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x0f,0x0f,0x00,0x00,0x09,0x0c,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x08,0x08,0x00,0x00,0x02,0x0c,0x01,0x07,0x0f,0x07,0xf7} -- This particular patch is for a Jupiter 8
defaultSysexMB = MemoryBlock()
defaultSysexMB:createFromTable(defaultSysex)
patch = {name = "No Name", author = "Default Author", category = "None", sysex = defaultSysexMB} -- Initialize table structure. Category only allows a single value currently.  Maybe redefine as a table. This is difficult to implement. In practice pulling a value from a table, of a table, of a table, doesn't work.

function patch:new (o)
    o = o or {} -- create object if user does not provide one
    setmetatable(o, self) -- define prototype
    self.__index = self
    return o
end

patchBank = {} -- each index is the patch ID. As we add patches we should call them as patchBank[1] = patch:new(). We can then access data by patchBank[1].name etc.
function patchBank:new(o)
    o = o or {} -- create object if user does not provide one
    setmetatable(o,self) -- define prototype
    self.__index = self
    return o
end

synthBank = patchBank:new() -- create the Synth Bank.

Elements within the patchbank can be accessed and copied like this

synthBank[i] = synthBank2[j]

You have full access to elements like

tempName = synthBank[i].name
tempAuthor = synthBank[i].author
tempCategory = synthBank[i].category
tempSysex = synthBank[i].sysex

I strip sysex headers off during import and only store the data segment of the sysex. I rebuild the header when I send it to the synth. The reason for this is because the header normally contains the destination bank and program number, and we want that to be dynamically assigned.

[dobo365]

Interesting.
I'm keeping everything as MemoryBlock and handle all with getByte(), getRange() including name, category...
Banks are also memoryblocks.
Easy to save/read to/from file as well.
I keep the headers because they are used to recognize the synth and manufacturer.

[dnaldoog]

Oh! Now I see - I should have seen that. It would be interesting to set up inheritance for that. I have tried but it does my head in - also it's usually not necessary for me, but well done and a nice example!

[Godlike-Productions]

There is a chapter on inheritance in the LUA manual. It fully supports it.

[dnaldoog]

myMethod = function(--[[ CtrlrComponent --]] comp, --[[ MouseEvent --]] event)
-- Intialize Classes
defaultSysex = {0xf0,0x00,0x00,0x2f,0x03,0x02,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x09,0x00,0x0c,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x0b,0x02,0x06,0x02,0x0f,0x0f,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x0f,0x0f,0x00,0x00,0x09,0x0c,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x08,0x08,0x00,0x00,0x02,0x0c,0x01,0x07,0x0f,0x07,0xf7} -- This particular patch is for a Jupiter 8
defaultSysexMB = MemoryBlock()
defaultSysexMB:createFromTable(defaultSysex)
patch = {name = "No Name", author = "Default Author", category = "None", sysex = defaultSysexMB} -- Initialize table structure. Category only allows a single value currently.  Maybe redefine as a table. This is difficult to implement. In practice pulling a value from a table, of a table, of a table, doesn't work.

function patch:new (o)
    o = o or {} -- create object if user does not provide one
    setmetatable(o, self) -- define prototype
    self.__index = self
    return o
end

patchBank = {} -- each index is the patch ID. As we add patches we should call them as patchBank[1] = patch:new(). We can then access data by patchBank[1].name etc.
function patchBank:new(o)
    o = o or {} -- create object if user does not provide one
    setmetatable(o,self) -- define prototype
    self.__index = self
    return o
end
patchBank =patch:new()
-- patchBank = patch --patch:new() or this!
synthBank = patchBank:new() -- create the Synth Bank.
--Elements within the patchbank can be accessed and copied like this

--synthBank  = synthBank2[j]

--You have full access to elements like

tempName = synthBank.name
tempAuthor = synthBank.author
tempCategory = synthBank.category
tempSysex = synthBank.sysex


tempName = synthBank.name or "nil"
tempAuthor = synthBank.author or "nil"
tempCategory = synthBank.category or "nil"
tempSysex = synthBank.sysex or "nil" 

console(string.format("tempName %s\ntempAuthor %s\ntempCategory %s\ntempSysex %s",tempName,tempAuthor,tempCategory,tempSysex:toHexString(1)))

end

Now I have got your code working, but still I think the declaration of patch:new() is unnecessary. I can equally just use patch{} directly as a static initializer to patchBank as you are doing through patch:new(), but that's not a problem.

In my example I only use one class object and the patch{} table is a member of that class, which is perhaps easier to understand. I'm no expert on OOP - Anyway, very nice example as I said.

[Godlike-Productions]

Oh nice, thanks for the example. I'll look at this method for the next plugin. Too far gone in this one at the moment.

[Godlike-Productions]

Just coming back to this.

patch:new() is important in many cases because it ensures that a new patch is valid as a fallback., I'll experiement with patch{}, it's probably equally valid. I've discovered that if you have nil in any part of the structure, then it will fail if you attempt to export json, and can potentially crash ctrlr.

I'm concerned about this

tempName = synthBank.name or "nil"
tempAuthor = synthBank.author or "nil"
tempCategory = synthBank.category or "nil"
tempSysex = synthBank.sysex or "nil" 

What's the purpose of this? Does this replace nil with the string "nil" if something is empty? If that's the case, that's quite an elegant solution to the issue. Just trying to understand.

[dnaldoog]

I'm guessing that was what I was intending, because json doesn't accept type nil, so you would be writing a String value to the file. When you read it back in you could then interpret "nil" how you wanted. I guess you could also do a boolean and check for truth when you load the json file back into your program: 🤔

tempName = synthBank.name or false
tempAuthor = synthBank.author or false
tempCategory = synthBank.category or false
tempSysex = synthBank.sysex or false 

if tempCategory==false then ... for example or

if type(tempCategory) ~= "string" then ...