I am trying to make a video recorder in pd for an installation. I want the video files to be recorded sequentially, with a timestamp of sorts in the filename, something like:

chan0_recording_yyyymmdd_HHMM.mov (e.g. chan0_recording_20090420_2134.mov)

I find it very very difficult to do string formatting in PureData, the only objects I know that dome something of the sort are [makefilename], [l2s] or [makesymbol]. I have made this little patch to fool around with these a bit and see if I can get what I want, but I'm not being very successful. Also, it's a rather crappy solution, the patch is too complex.

Is there another way around this? Maybe an object that does what sprintf does?

Any help is appreciated. TIA.

http://www.pdpatchrepo.info/hurleur/date_string_formatting.png

Just for future google miners, here is a solution based on the [sprintf] object boonier pointed out.

Anything elegant that is plain pd with no extensions is still elusive. Solutions still welcome.

http://www.pdpatchrepo.info/hurleur/date_string_formatting_sprintf.png

Not really, extended is also fine. Unless of course there's an elegant and simple solution in vanilla pd.

Thanks a lot for your tip!