I will be booting my live rig in various configs...sometimes a single midi input, sometimes up to 3. Is there some way to question what ports are available when loading PD so I can appropriately readdress inputs to patches?
ie Port1 = UR44 (1-16)
Port2 = Axiom (17-32)
Port3 = .Midi Guitar (tripleplay) (33-48)

etc. If I am filtering for a CC on Ch33 (Midi Guitar Ch1) and the Axiom is not available/reassigned to a diff input, then there will be a diff in channel numbers

When I restart with different devices plugged in, there seems to be no clear pattern as to how the midi devices are reassigned to the inputs. Sometimes PD doesnt even start.

Don't know about any interrogation methods.

Seems like your best bet is to try an external midi routing app with patch presets. You could also try using different midi startup flags with Pd but I'm not sure how well that works as haven't tried it, and if you are on Mac/Win the porting setups are basically still unfinished hacks as of v0.46-7.

Ok, thanks. Well, I still have vbscript...so I guess I will have to use that as a startup core, check for connected usb devices and then load pd with appropriate midi flags depending on what is plugged in and have a dummy loopback device to fill in the gaps ie use as a dummy input...was hoping to ditch the vbs altogether. What are the 'port hacks'?

@image_engine said:

What are the 'port hacks'?

What I mean is that the midi port setup routines in the on the Mac/Win platforms are basically unfinished and not fully functional, both on the command line and in the gui, which is why I ran into problems like this when trying to run my patches on a Mac::

http://sourceforge.net/p/pure-data/bugs/1201/

There are a couple of threads on the Pd list that get into these types of issues, the problem is that they stray between different midi connection issues and the different OS platforms making a definitive answer hard to sus out. You can read through the full discussion threads to see if you can find anything useful:

http://markmail.org/message/ig4e6wz7ld55sjy6?q='midi+ports+list:at.iem.pd-list&page=2

http://markmail.org/message/tpvmuyctrsczbstu?q='midi+ports+list:at.iem.pd-list&page=2

gotcha...cheers.