Norns Save Table to Param?

toneburst · March 22, 2022, 1:26pm

Is it possible to save an arbitrary Lua table to a param? I realise there would likely be no way to set the values for the data inside the table via the Params menu, but it would still be nice to be able to save and recall data about, say, a custom note scale set via a UI to a param.

Justmat · March 22, 2022, 1:35pm

it’s not using the param system, but check out tabutil it has a table saving and loading method

https://monome.org/docs/norns/api/modules/tabutil.html#save

dan_derks · March 22, 2022, 1:58pm

love these q’s + a’s!

to perform a tabutil save or load with a PSET save or load, you can also assign functions to params.action_write and params.action_read, which will be called when a PSET is written or read. it was added by Zack a few months ago, but didn’t make it into the docs – i’ve made a note to add it in today!

toneburst · March 22, 2022, 2:15pm

20 characters of “Cool, thanks guys!”

dan_derks · March 30, 2022, 10:06pm

just closing the loop that i added a barebones example a week ago, but dropped in a more robust example today: params | monome/docs

(always nice when ~60 lines of docs code generates its own background music while finishing the doc)

Travis · March 31, 2022, 6:01pm

Timing of this question couldn’t be better! I’m building a sequencer with some class-like tables and this saved me from a ton of refactoring to move everything into a parameter.

followup question—is there a way to hook into a PSET being deleted? It occurred to me that the data files will just hangout there indefinitely unless manually removed. Is that correct?

dan_derks · March 31, 2022, 8:07pm

oh good call, i’ve proposed adding a delete callback as well as PSET numbers to help with data management – i realized that in the example, if an artist chose the same name for many PSETs, then they would overwrite each other. hang tight for revision!

github.com/monome/norns

add PSET number to PSET actions + add delete action

monome:main ← monome:pset-delete-callback

opened 07:59PM - 31 Mar 22 UTC

dndrks

+40 -6

while writing up examples for saving table data with PSETs (building off of @sch…ollz 's incredible work on this front), i realized that PSET index number is a helpful reporting callback -- since PSETs made via the PSET UI can share names, the index number is often the only differentiator. rather than force authors to extract this from the loaded filename, it made sense to add the PSET's index number (if available) to the actions. i also realized that a PSET deletion action would be helpful for external data management, so i added that as well. here's a quick example of usage: ```lua MusicUtil = require 'musicutil' -- see https://monome.org/docs/norns/reference/lib/musicutil s = require 'sequins' -- see https://monome.org/docs/norns/reference/lib/sequins function init() base_note = math.random(30,50) my_seq = s{} notes_array = MusicUtil.generate_scale_of_length(base_note, "dorian", 16) note_data = {} for j = 1,64 do -- auto-generate 64 steps of notes: note_data[j] = MusicUtil.snap_note_to_array(math.random(base_note, base_note+28),notes_array) end my_seq:settable(note_data) -- send this table of notes to the sequins play = false -- here, we set our PSET callbacks: params.action_write = function(filename,name,number) print("finished writing '"..filename.."' as '"..name.."'", number) os.execute("mkdir -p "..norns.state.data.."/"..number.."/") tab.save(note_data,norns.state.data.."/"..number.."/note.data") end params.action_read = function(filename,silent,number) print("finished reading '"..filename.."'", number) note_data = tab.load(norns.state.data.."/"..number.."/note.data") my_seq:settable(note_data) -- send this restored table to the sequins end params.action_delete = function(filename,name,number) print("finished deleting '"..filename, number) norns.system_cmd("rm -r "..norns.state.data.."/"..number.."/") end end ``` in the example: - when a user saves a PSET, its index is passed to create a numeric directory in the script's data folder -- the note table is saved there as `note.data` - when a user reads a PSET, its index is passed to load the note data into a sequins - when a user deletes a PSET, its index is passed to delete the directory which holds the additional tables, etc this is testing well on my side, but please lmk if there's anything i'm missing!

dan_derks · April 3, 2022, 3:05pm

closing the loop!
the PR linked above was approved + will be merged into the next norns update. EDIT: i had previously thought this made the cutoff for the latest 220321 update, but it didn’t, apologies for the false lead!

i pulled the docs update as well, so as not to further confuse, but here’s how i adapted my code to take advantage of the pset-last.txt file to drive naming: less-concepts/less-concepts.lua at 42a61422e11ba79e72317c82c66163023d506311 · vicimity-dndrks/less-concepts · GitHub

while there’s no delete functionality as of now, i figure if we’re sticking to building additional files inside of matching-named folders, then there shouldn’t be too much cruff. apologies for jumping the gun!