Lua method parameters

Getting Stuff Done Hints and Tricks
#1

Actually, I’m trying to dig into Lua more by trial and error, since many methods and their parameters are not explained in detail in the Lua Bindings Class Reference.
For example, I don’t know what parameters 4,8 and 9 in new_audio_track() do, and I wished I could find out, what these do.
Is there a way to find that out for all these methods? Maybe in the source code? But I guess, in this case I’m a little lost, since I wouldn’t know, where to start there.
Any hints on that?

#2

I am going to share with you a trick which is useful when working with source code, in general.

Install ripgrep and then move into Ardour’s source code directory and run:

rg new_audio_track

It will find you all usages of new_audio_track, including its definition and some Lua scripts calling it. That should be enough, but we know that definitions in C/C++ are stored in header files (with *.h or *.hpp extenson) so let’s refine our search a bit, and show 10 lines (there are 9 parameters) after our match:

rg new_audio_track -g '*.{h,hpp}' -A10

We get:

        std::list<std::shared_ptr<AudioTrack> > new_audio_track (
                int input_channels,
                int output_channels,
                RouteGroup* route_group,
                uint32_t how_many,
                std::string name_template,
                PresentationInfo::order_t order,
                TrackMode mode = Normal,
                bool input_auto_connect = true,
                bool trigger_visibility = false
                );

Which should be what you are looking for! This is why FLOSS is awesome :slight_smile:

3 Likes
#3

That’s awesome, mate! Thank you! :blush:

1 Like
#4

The Lua Bindings Class Reference page uses documentation from the source-code (doxygen comments). Sadly many of Ardour’s API methods are not documented.

Initially I had the goal to document methods when adding Lua bindings for each of them, but in recent years that good intention turned out to be road to hell :slight_smile:

But as @fretboard mentioned you can just look it up the source-code.
You can also use the search feature of github (top-left on GitHub - Ardour/ardour: Mirror of Ardour Source Code).

1 Like
#5

I’m aware that it’s a big task to create a documentation for the API and maintaing such a nice piece of software, like Ardour is! So, just a big thanks to all at this point, who are working hard on the development of Ardour to make it such a great, flexible and affordable DAW! :hugs: