taking input from a 'data file'

[dataknut]

Brilliant tool - good work!

Scenario:
I want to process a data file (time stamped stream of numbers) grabbed (perhaps) via http or an IP socket and have sonic_pi 'audiolise' it. The streams represent a number of different entities (e.g. households) observed over time - typically every second. There will be n observations per second where n = the number of entities observed.

Feature needed:
Issue #20 would do this if I pre-processed the data into a play file but I have real time data which I'd like sonic_pi to play out on the fly. Also the data files are too big for a rpi to hold (typically several Gb) - so the play files would be too (?). Hence suggestion to play a minimally buffered stream out in real (or faster/slower) time. The feature may also require some maths/text manipulation features - e.g. to split lines and strings etc.

many thanks
Ben

[whaleygeek]

As I understand it, Sonic Pi is just ruby (i.e. the files you type in to the edit window interact with the engine are just ruby code). so presumably you could just write some ruby code inside one of the normal edit windows to use the standard ruby libraries and methods for opening sockets and reading data, and then call the play() command with the data that comes back from the socket?

[samaaron]

Yep, you should be able to use regular Ruby libraries from within Sonic Pi - although I definitely think I could spend some time thinking about how to make this easier for users...

[samaaron]

Closing for now - handling of 'generic' data files is not planned - for this use the (unsupported) Ruby features for the particular data file you're planning on working with.

It may be possible that I'll add support for a small number of specific data files such as MIDI files in the future. Please do let me know which file types you'd like to see supported.