Export Chop vs Relative reference

Hello

What is the fundamental difference between the “Export CHOP” option and the CHOP Reference (relative or absolute)? I can see the expression that is applied to the value is different, but I’m not sure how it differs in use and purpose?

Thanks!
Alex

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For me I have found one to be better than the other depending on the situation. If you want a dedicated link between a channel and a parameter then the export works well especially if the channel name might change. (although recently I noticed on the common page of the exporting chop the export method menu, which options can be really useful if the channel order changes or the name changes).

Chop references can be useful for a number of different things. If you want to use other expressions, variables and or combine other channels from other chops it can be a fast way to get the channel reference in the parameter and it saves using other chops to do the math before you export it. Chop relative referenced op’s can be copied and pasted and retain the there reference within a network while absolute references can be copied and pasted anywhere in the project.

One question I have is what is the performance difference between a reference and an export. Using the performance monitor I haven’t really been able to tell for sure, it seems that a reference is normally faster but not always?

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While we do not have benchmarks on this, the overall sentiment here is that CHOP exports are ever so slightly lighter/faster. If the reference is using an expression, there will be overhead involved in parsing and calculating that expression. Again, this difference is very small, so I still recommend using what makes the most sense to you in your particular application.

Another thing that exports allow you to do easily is quickly change where you are exporting your value to. You can easily update the export DAT table or the CHOP channel name (if using “automatic by name”) and your exported channel will instantly change where its going.

A useful example of this is having a movie index channel and switching which Movie In TOP this index is sent to based on which movie you want to playback.

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