Saving / Restoring data in a program

[Rony Steelandt]

WOW Bob,

Trying to write an open source of Band in a Box or Jammer?

Very interesting !!! How far are you at the moment ?
Is there a demo of it ?

Rony

"Bob van der Poel" <bvdpoel at kootenay.com> a écrit dans le message de news:
3fbe4e63_1 at dns.sd54.bc.ca...
>
>
> Lonnie Princehouse wrote:
> > It's not entirely clear what you're trying to do, but it sounds like
> > you want to save and restore the state of a subset of local namespace.
> >
> > First off, rethink this whole scheme.  Consider writing a class for
> > your saved data.  Much more Pythonic.
>
> Sorry about being unclear. I tired to make my problem simplier than it
> is, and this probably just led to less clearity. Let me try again...
>
> My progarm, MMA, creates midi accompaniment tracks. (BTW, an alpha
> version of this program is available with demos, docs, etc. on my web
> site.) It lets the user define a "Groove" which is a collection of style
> details. These details include things like the pattern to use for drums,
> piano chords, etc. As well, the groove includes the octave for each
> voice, timing options, volumes, etc.
>
> A user creates a song by listing the chords and setting the grooves. So,
> he might have the first 4 bars of a song with a groove called "SWING",
> the next 8 with "RHUMBA", etc.
>
> What my program needs to do is to save the pattern, etc. in a storage
> space and, when needed, restore the settings from that storage. One
> complication is that the current settings don't need to be saved. So, it
>   isn't as simple as having a pointer to the "SWING" slot. Instead, I
> copy the data from the slot into the current space (overwritting the
> current settings). And all this data from the current space can be saved
> into a storage space.
>
> Now, I do have all this working. I just don't like the way it has been
> implimented. As I tried (poorly) to explain in my previous post, I put
> the various details into storage with code like this... consider the
> variables needed to maintain a piano chord track (this stuff is
> duplicated for drum tracks, etc. And, yes, this is all object based).
>
> Again, trying to make it bit clearer, we have a number of variables.
> I've noted them here with static values, but they are created dynamically.
>
>     self.octave = (4,0,1,5)
>     self.timeadjust = (5,5,5,5)
>     self.pattern = { vols=(90,80,99,100), start=(0, 25, 50, 75),
> len=(4,4,4,4) }
>     ..and a lot more...
>
> Now, at some point we want to save all this so it can be recalled later.
> And, note, we have to save copies of the data, not references. I'm using
> a dict with keys the same as the groove names. So, for the SWING groove,
> the data is saved in self.grooves['SWING']. So, we end up with code:
>
>      self.grooves["SWING"] = {
>          'OCTAVE':self.octave[:]
>          'TIME':self.timeadjust[:]
>          'PATS':self.pattern.copy()
>          ... etc }
>
> And, later when we need to restore:
>
>      g=self.grooves["SWING"]
>      self.octave=g['OCTAVE']
>      self.timeadjust=g['TIME']
>      self.pattern=g['PATS']
>
> My concerns with all this are mainly maintainace. Everytime I add or
> modify something I have make sure I add them to the save/restore code.
> And this includes having the right "copy" code (is this a list which can
> be copied with [:], or a dict which needs ".copy", etc). Plus I have to
> make sure I duplicate things properly in the save and restore sections.
> And the spellings of the storage slots ('OCTAVE', 'PATS') has to be the
> same.
>
>
> > But if you're determined, consider this snippet:
>
> Really not a matter of being determined to do it my way :) But, I am
> determined to keep it working...
>
> > # make some variables
> > a = 5
> > b = 10
> > c = 'foo'
> >
> > # Names of variables to save
> > save_vars = ['a','b','c']
> >
> > # Save them by first dumping their values into a list with
> > # a list comprehension
> > saved['store1'] = [(key,locals()[key]) for key in save_vars]
>
> If they were all simple items like an integer, then this would be fine.
> But, I have a mix of simple variables, lists and dicts.
>
>
> > On a side note, it _is_ possible to use pickle without a proper file.
> > In your case, it doesn't sound like there's any reason to do this, but
> > it does come in handy upon occasion. Pickle only wants something that
> > behaves like a file, so you can use a StringIO instead:
>
> Yes, I was thinking of using pickle, but you're right that there doesn't
> seem to be much benefit. But, I will file away the thought of using
> StringIO for a future project. Thanks.
>
> Thinking a bit more about all this it might make the most sense to pack
> all the variables which need saving into a class. What do you think
> about something like this:
>
>    class mutablevariables:
>      def __init__(self):
>        self.octave = [0,0,0,0]
>        self.pats = ...
>
> Now, when I need to reference the octave, I would end up with:
>
>     o = self.mutablevariables.octave[offset]
>
> which isn't that much different from what I'm doing right now which is:
>
>     o = self.octave[offset]
>
> And I can always set a temp variable to make the refs a bit shorts.
>
> And then I can save the whole works with:
>
>      self.grooves["SWING"] = copy.deepcopy(self.mutablevariables)
>
> Is this what you mean by "Consider writing a class for your saved data.
>   Much more Pythonic."
>
> Thanks!
>
> --
> Bob van der Poel ** Wynndel, British Columbia, CANADA **
> EMAIL: bvdpoel at kootenay.com
> WWW:   http://www.kootenay.com/~bvdpoel
>