[microsound] max/msp run time (steffen scholl)

[Charlie DeTar]

On 05/13/2010 03:00 AM, Justin Glenn Smith wrote:
> what he is saying is that max patches are text files. The really tricky thing is that objects and connections are referred to by numbers based on the order they are created so deleting an object or moving a connection etc. can get way tricky, but if you do it in a disciplined way it is definitely possible to hack max patches in a text editor.
> 
> Lorenzo wrote:
>>
>>> but it is not to hard to edit a patch as textfile, so you can hack it...
>> Not if they have been saved in some binary format.

It is tangential to the argument at hand, but indeed max patches can be
saved in binary (typically ".mxb"), text (typically ".mxt") or
collection formats (including standalone app bundles that embed the
runtime).  If it's a simple max binary format (not a collection), this
simple utility which I extracted from the "cyclone" PD/Max compatibility
project could convert it to text:

http://tirl.org/software/maxb2maxt/

And indeed, hacking a patch code by hand is ridiculous. Though I've done
it for small fixes, if you had to make a substantial change, you'd be
better off reimplementing in supercollider, PD, or anything else really.

-charlie