getKeys for dictionaries

[thomas-risse]

Would it be possible to include the getKeys method of the max API for dictionaries to the min API ? If not, would it be possible to ad a function returning the underlying max dictionary ?

I can't figure out how to get the underlyning max dictionary from the dict class, as the only casting functions casts the object to a max::t_object*.

Thanks a lot !

[isabelgk]

This is a reasonable request! In the meantime, you can simply cast the max::t_object* to a max::t_dictionary* when using with the C-based API. (This is a general pattern you would see in the Max SDK where t_object acts kind of like a base class. A struct that has a t_object as the first member, like t_dictionary, is passed around as the more general t_object* pointer.) You can see in the min-api that the max::t_object* operator is returning what is indeed an underlying max::t_dictionary* just as a max::t_object* pointer.

[janmech]

Wanted to make a pull request, but I didn't manage.

adding this code to c74_min_dictionary.h will add two new methods:

dict.entrycount()
dict.keys()

to get the entry count and a the keys respectively.

 /// Get number of entries of dictionary
    long entrycount() {
        return (long)max::dictionary_getentrycount(m_instance);
    }
    
    /// Returns a vector of symbols with dictionary keys
    std::vector<symbol> keys() {
        std::vector<symbol>k;
        max::t_symbol    **keys = NULL;
        long        numkeys = 0;
        long        I;
        
        max::dictionary_getkeys(m_instance, &numkeys, &keys);
        for(i=0; i<numkeys; i++){
            k.push_back(symbol(keys[i]));
        }
        if(keys) {
            max::dictionary_freekeys(m_instance, numkeys, keys);
        }
        return k;
    }

update: pull request created: Cycling74/min-api#202