Hey ! I am just starting with PD. Very nice piece of code I must say.
My question: Is there an easy way to schedule a queue of processes in pd-vanilla ?
For instance in one of my experiments I trigger a series of bangs launching several subpatche process of yet unknown duration (based on tabread loops) . A given process should wait for it's predecessor completion before starting. Simply speaking I am looking for a kind of "return 1" equivalent.

Thanks in advance for your advices.

@ouzala Hi and welcome to Pd.
If those processes are of unknown (or variable) time lengths, I guess you must to derive the end trigger directly from each event in order to set off the next one. This depends on how you are playing those loops. For example, [tabplay~] and [readsf~] already have an outlet which gives a bang whenever you reach the end of the playback. If you use [tabread~] it's different.
It'd be easier for us to help you more specifically if you could post your patch.

@weightless , thanks for your input. True I am still a bit confused about data structure and access in PD. Like the link between tables and arrays.

Unfortunately the experience I was talking about is for the moment such a mess that I don't want to risk anyone's sanity by posting it. I will try to take some time to extract a minimal example.

In one case I have a [tabread] flow fed into a chain of logical gates (a kind of classifier, data is coming from a live spectral analysis of the mic signal ). Depending on the value, the chain can be short or long before completion. I had problem's with data messing in the pipe, mostly because the order is not conserved (e.g. first value needing a bigger chain ends up getting out later than second value with a shorter chain) . I have resolved the problem by adding a [metro 5] as a feeding rate, however it is quite inefficient because 5ms is a very conservative time estimate for any single chain. Ideally I would like to build a data bucket after the [tabread], which will release values when a completion bang is received, the tricky part is that the bucket has to remain open for receiving new values.

I hope that this all makes some sense.
Cheers.

(improved clarity edits)

@ouzala Are you resizing the arrays according to incoming data?
If so you could bang the next array read when the counter for tabread equals that value ...?
Even if you are not re-sizing, you know the length of the array so you can do the same for the counter.
David.

@whale-av Aha ok, interesting. Do you mean dynamically resizing (as in changing the variable memory allocation) ? If it is the case I don't know how to.

@ouzala In extended.... with a message to the Array (see below). Make it bigger than you might need at first, then add your data, and then send the message.

For Vanilla (I see that is what you are using)..... use [array size arrayname]
Bang it's left inlet for the size to be sent to its outlet (get the current size if you need that)
Put a float into its left inlet to set the size.
The same applies as above......... (Make it bigger than you might need at first, then add your data, and then send in the float to squash it to the data size.)

EXCEPT THAT (sorry, I am new to this vanilla thing)
Using [tabwrite] and [tabread] in Vanilla you are using [table]....... for which the method is the same as for Extended. See [tabwrite-help] and the image below.
David.

Extended.......