I want to tell an instance of Prure Data to load and or unload a patch, via the command line. Analogous to open/close a patch in the GUI

I could use -nogui and kill/restart Pure Data each time. Is there a better way?

I could write bespoke patches using OSC or netsend, but is trhere a better way?

@Worik use the pdsend program to send fudi to pd. Inside pd receive with [netreceive]
a man page is in the "man" folder of the pd source tree.
pdsend is installed into different locations depending on your platform. for MacOS it's in the app bundle (in the "bin" folder). linux probably installs it to the same place it installs pd.

@Worik Not sure what you are looking for.....
If you want to open a patch from the command line you can open Pd and a patch with a batch file...... in windows it would look something like this....

"C:\Program Files (x86)\pd\bin\pd.com" -path C:\Users\David\Desktop\PDMusic\Minx -path C:\Program_Files_(x86)\pd\extra\readanysf~\ -r 44100 -asio -nomidi -audioindev 20 -audiooutdev 15 -inchannels 32 -outchannels 22 -audiobuf 2 -blocksize 64 -callback -nosleep -open Minx_Run.pd
exit`

which on my system opens Minx_run.Pd and tells Pd where to find it........ \PdMusic\Minx
It also sets a load of command line switches...... to set up audio for this very specific instance (useful!).
There will be similar methods in other os's.

When you want to close the patch (and Pd) you kill the Dos window that the batch file created.

Messages can be sent to Pd to close a specific patch..... but another patch will have to be open (probably the one receiving the message) or Pd will terminate.
It can be done from within the patch but its complicated........ https://forum.pdpatchrepo.info/topic/11710/closing-patches-without-pd-crashing-hopefully-in-an-elegant-way ...... and not easy.

If you want to keep Pd open and control from another program........ then as @seb-harmonik.ar describes........ but the menuclose message might crash Pd if another patch (any patch) is not open........ https://forum.pdpatchrepo.info/topic/4063/close-patch-window-command-object
Anyway, it is cleaner to use a second patch to receive your messages and close the desired patch.
David.

@seb-harmonik.ar Thank you. pdsend looks perfect