AbstractFunction

An AbstractFunction is an object which responds to a set of messages that represent

mathematical functions. Subclasses override a smaller set of messages to respond

to the mathematical functions. The intent is to provide a mechanism for functions

that do not calculate values directly but instead compose structures for calculating.

Function, Pattern, Stream and UGen are subclasses of AbstractFunction.

For example, if you multiply two UGens together the receiver responds by answering a new

instance of class BinaryOpUGen which has the two operands as inputs.

Unary Messages:

All of the following messages send the message composeUnaryOp to the receiver with the

unary message selector as an argument.

neg, reciprocal, bitNot, abs, asFloat, asInt, ceil, floor, frac, sign, squared, cubed, sqrt

exp, midicps, cpsmidi, midiratio, ratiomidi, ampdb, dbamp, octcps, cpsoct, log, log2,

log10, sin, cos, tan, asin, acos, atan, sinh, cosh, tanh, rand, rand2, linrand, bilinrand,

sum3rand, distort, softclip, nyqring, coin, even, odd, isPositive, isNegative,

isStrictlyPositive

Binary Messages:

All of the following messages send the message composeBinaryOp to the receiver with the

binary message selector and the second operand as arguments.

+, -, *, /, div, %, **, min, max, <, <=, >, >=, &, |, bitXor, lcm, gcd, round, trunc, atan2, 

hypot, >>, +>>, fill, ring1, ring2, ring3, ring4, difsqr, sumsqr, sqrdif, absdif, amclip,

scaleneg, clip2, excess, <!, rrand, exprand

Messages with more arguments:

All of the following messages send the message composeNAryOp to the receiver with the

binary message selector and the other operands as arguments.

clip, wrap, fold, blend, linlin, linexp, explin, expexp

Function Composition:

when unary, binary or n-ary operators are appied to an abstract function, it returns an object that represents

this operation, without evaluating the function: UnaryOpFunction, BinaryOpFunction, NAryOpFunction.

Note that different subclasses like Pattern or UGen have their own composition scheme analogous to the one of AbstractFunction itself. More about functions, see [Function]

// examples

a = { 1.0.rand } + 8;

a.value;

y = { 8 } + { 1.0.rand };

y.value;

// arguments are passed into both functions

y = { |x=0| x } + { 1.0.rand };

y.value(10);

y = { |x=0| x * 3 } + { |x=0| x + 1.0.rand };

y.value(10);

y.postcs;

y = { |x=0| x * 3 } + { |x=0| x + 1.0.rand } * { |x=0| [50, 100].choose + x } + 1.0;

y.value(10);

// environments can be used as a lookup with valueEnvir:

(

Environment.use {

~y = 10;

~x = 2;

~z = { |x=8| x } + { |y=0| y + 1.0.rand };

~z.valueEnvir;

}

)

// n-ary operators:

a = blend({ 3.0.rand }, { 1000.rand }, { |frac| frac });

a.value(0.5);

a.value((0, 0.06..1)); // creates a range of values..