canonical atom-types:

• A_FLOAT (1)

  a number, e.g. 3

• A_SYMBOL (2)

  a symbol (a string stored in a hashtable), e.g. foo

• A_POINTER (3)

  a pointer to a datastructure

canonical atom-types usually not found in messages (only messageboxes):

• A_SEMI (4)

  a semicolon ; (end of message)

• A_COMMA (5)

  a comma , (message delimiter)

• A_DOLLAR (8)

  a (numbered) placeholder, e.g. $2

• A_DOLLSYM (9)

  a symbol containing a (numbered) placeholder, e.g. $0-table

pseudo atom-types (not used in t_atom):

• A_NULL (0)

  type-list terminator. does not count as being part of the type-list.

• A_DEFFLOAT (6)

  default number (for object arguments)

  if the user does not supply a (numeric) argument, 0 is assumed

• A_DEFSYM (7)

  default symbol (for object arguments)

  if the user does not supply a (symbolic) argument, '' (empty symbol) is assumed

• A_GIMME (10)

  type-list element representing all arguments at once. should be the only type-list element.

• A_CANT (11)

  "bottom type". this makes it impossible to call a method the normal way: it has to be picked up by getfn. this is meant to be for methods that have to accept non-atom arguments. for example, DSP arguments are not atoms.

user-defined atom-types:

if you add your own atom-type, please specify the numeric-value and a description where the type is used

• A_NULL (0)

  this pseudo atom-type is reused by GridFlow as a real atom-type. when a_type==A_NULL, a_w is ignored and the meaning is like that of "nil" or "undef" or "none" or "NULL" in other languages.

• A_LIST (13)

  a_w is a t_binbuf *. used by GridFlow and eventually DesireData.

• A_GRID (14)

  reserved by GridFlow

• A_GRIDOUT (15)

  a_w is a GridOutlet *. used by GridFlow

• A_FTS_OBJECT (77)

  a complex datastructure as used by FTM

  reserved by IOhannes

• A_FTS_STRING (78)

  a string as used by FTM

  reserved by IOhannes

• A_EVIL (666)

  evil data; could be useful in the future for optimized implementations of evil processing routines

  reserved by Stephen Sinclair

user-defined pseudo atom-types (not used in t_atom):

• A_ATOM (12)

  reserved by DesireData... or not. (still pondering)