Hi, I'm just trying to figure out how to work with this object and the help file is really confusing to me

Firstly- can any kind soul point me toward a better resource for understanding how to use this object?

Secondly, I'm going to point out a few of my confusions with the help file, specifically in [text define]:

• "text define" maintains a text object and can name it so that other objects can find it (and later should have some, alternative, anonymous way to be found)."
• • What does that second half mean? An "anonymous way to be found" sounds like an oxymoron to me.

• When i click the message box [write text-object-help.txt] that is connected to [text define -k text-help-1], I get an error in the console that reads "text-object-help.txt: write failed"
• • Why should something in a help file fail like this? There's nothing apparent in the help file to explain the error. I'm running realtime Purr-Data on Manjaro's latest realtime kernel, everything is updated.
• Next to the message box [sort], there's just a comment that reads "comment"
• • lol what?
• It seems like [text define] creates the text file with its third argument (e.g., [text define -k file-name-here]" However, the help patch is reading from a file called "text-object-help.txt" and when the file is opened, "text-help-1" is on the top of the window.
• • Dear god, what is going on?

If anyone feels like helping me out here, I would gladly help put together a better help patch. Or maybe I'm just reading this totally incorrectly.

Thanks continually for all of your support, everyone!

@Matt-Stalcup I don't see all of the problems that you describe in this version (from Pd Vanilla 0.49 but still the same in 0.53)...... text.zip ...... so maybe it will help.
Of course I might not have looked hard enough...... but it might be different to the file you have?
I hope it helps.

Anonymous... maybe that at some point in the future it could be possible to find the data contained in a [text] object without knowing its name....... a "sort of" [text search all] or [text get all].
An [all( message has been implemented for some objects...... for example [clone].

[write( failed could be because the file attributes of text-object-help.txt have been set as read only...... maybe.

"sort" does seem to have proper help.

In [text define] "text-help-1" is at the top of the window because that is the defined name of the "defined" [text] window. The data has been read from the file text-object-text.txt, which is a simple "text" file...... not the same thing at all as a [text] object.... when you clicked the [read ...( message.

Summary.
A [text] object maintains a list of lists, each list separated by a comma or a semi-colon (carriage return) and each [text] object has a defined name.... which is defined by [text define].
So [text define] creates the [text] window and holds the data...... which will be saved within when you save the patch only if you use the -k switch. If you don't use the -k switch then you will have to write new data (generated from incoming midi for example) or read in data from an external file every time you open the patch.
The data can be read from an external .txt file and written to it, and that file can have a different name.... e.g. playlist.txt.

The other objects [text get] etc. provide the tools for finding and manipulating the lists within the defined window.
You could think of it being a three dimensional [array] that can contain "anything" rather than just a list of floats.
The story started with [qlist] which was then supplemented with [textfile] and eventually superseded by [text]........ see [text sequence] for the similarities to appear.
The separation of functions into free-standing objects such as [text get] allows you to interact with [text define] from different parts of a patch (or another patch) without sending messages or connecting cords.
David.

@Matt-Stalcup The help files are in the process of a major revision which I believe is mostly complete and is now in the bug hunting phase. Your pd install is on the old side, the errors in the [text] help were fixed awhile ago, updating will fix them and others.

@whale-av, @oid, thanks for the pointers. I'll dig into this soon.

Although I'm not sure why my install of PD is outdated. I've got the most recent version through AUR. Is AUR not updated?

@Matt-Stalcup Because your PD is probably not PureData but PlugData or pd-l2ork or the like and that is not up to date with PureData which they are built off of. There is a pd-git in the AUR and there will often be errors and bugs in the git since that is the development version. If you use the git version then you should reporting bugs you find on the pd git.

@oid, hey!

Sorry, life got busy and I stepped away from this damnable hobby for a while. Just wanted to say that, yes, I'm using Purr-Data. The version in the AUR must not be totally updated. Anyway, I have so many issues already with keeping all my packages up to date and in sync that it's not worth it to me to do an install outside the AUR.

Thanks a bunch for both your help (and you as well @whale-av. I've been able to figure out how to handle [text] sufficiently for my purposes.