Rename CHOP problem

General TouchDesigner Discussion
1

For my “DAT to CHOP to DAT” detour I need to encode every table column into the CHOPname, and that for each channel/row.
The problem is that I have no access to $C in the select/rename CHOP
tab("table,$C,1"): tab("table,$C,1"): tab("table,$C,1") …
so how could I get the expression to refer to a different table row for each channel?

Should be more clear if you take a look at this simple example

detour.toe (2.65 KB)
Thanks
A

2

Hey Achim,

you can use a merge DAT after the initial table to concatenate the columns with “:” and then transform it with the datto chop (here you would have to set the First Column is parameter to “Names”).

Or is there a reason why you can’t do it this way?

cheers
markus
detour.tox (1.12 KB)

3

perfect, didn’t see that option in the merge DAT .Thanks markus

4

hey markus, do you have an idea how to quickly/efficiently convert it back into a multi-column table?

Attached are 3 approaches, but they are all expensive. 22-80 ms opposed to 5 ms for the DAT to CHOP conversion.
toDATs.4.toe (7.3 KB)

5

Hey Achim,

reading it I thought of your 3rd aproach. So I can’t think of another way but finding that we maybe should have a split DAT or have the convert DAT have a parameter after which to split text with.

Otherwise maybe don’t do the whole conversion with long channelnames but instead add IDs to each row which makes them identifiable and from there on use the IDs to access the table.

cheers
markus

6

Hey Markus

yes, a split DAT /convert DAT option should be useful.

I don’t think I can use an ID based approach for this. Basically what I’m doing is:
In each component a CHOP holds the fullpath of the component + the fullpath of the component connected to the component’s input (it’s encoded in the incoming channelname). Then I multiselect all those CHOPs, convert into a table and then can use any components fullpath to look up all components connected to it’s in- and outputs (inputs is easy, but this approach seems the only way to get the outputs. You might remember viewtopic.php?f=4&t=348&hilit=+connections )

7

yes - remember that one. Check out the expressions oppathtoid() and opidtopath() - the nice thing is that nodes can be renamed/moved etc but the id stays the same… with an eval DAT you can change all the long strings to IDs possibly reducing the time the back conversion takes by quite a bit.

cheers
markus

8

Nodes that are moved won’t have the same id actually. Renamed ones will though

9

ups - thx malcolm

markus

10

Thanks! I fear that the time it takes to calculate the opidtopath conversion will be around the same as it would take to split the longer strings, but it’s worth a try.

11

If you convert it from the big table then yes - i guess it will take the same time, but if you convert the path names to ids right where you first query the path names and enter them into the table to then back convert it where you need the path again, you might save time…

With that you would save already when converting in the toCHOPS Network

markus

12

unfortunately not, as I eventually need to convert everything back to real paths, I end up with the same or sometimes higher total cooking time. Seems like I’ll have to wait and hope for a multi-select DAT.