Pure Data as an embeddable audio synthesis library

Copyright (c) Peter Brinkmann & the libpd team 2010-2016

See our website and book at http://libpd.cc

For documentation of libpd, see the wiki: https://github.com/libpd/libpd/wiki

If you are using Processing, iOS, or Android, see our companion repositories:

• puredatap5
• pd-for-ios
• pd-for-android

The preferred method to download libpd is to use git.

Do not download libpd as a zip or tar.gz file from GitHub.

The "Download zip" button may look like a good idea, but currently Github does not include submodule files when compiling zip files. This means the zip file is missing the main pd source files and you will not be able to build libpd, with errors such as: No rule to make target `pure-data/src/d_arithmetic.o' or No such file or directory: pure-data/extra/bonk~/bonk~.c.

To download libpd & checkout the pure-data submodule do the following:

git clone https://github.com/libpd/libpd.git
cd libpd
git submodule init
git submodule update

You should now have a libpd directory and the libpd/pure-data should contain the pd sources. If not, make sure you ran the git submodule commands in the libpd folder itself.

For most uses, it is recommended to checkout the latest stable release version via a git tag. For example, to switch to libpd version 0.8.3 after cloning:

git checkout 0.8.3

The master branch contains the latest libpd development and can be considered generally stable. However, we make no guarantees. :)

The folder containing the sources of Pd Vanilla and standard externals. This is a git submodule of Miller Puckette's official Pd git repository:

git://git.code.sf.net/p/pure-data/pure-data

This folder contains the source files that make up the core of libpd.

Build support for various platforms. Feel free to improve the build system in any way you see fit.

Currently the main Makefile builds a dynamic lib on Windows (in MinGW), Linux, & Mac OSX and has the following targets:

• libpd: (default) builds if no target is specified, builds the libpd.so/dylib/dll
• cpplib: builds libpd with the cpp wrapper
• csharplib: builds libpdcsharp.dll (on Windows) or libpdcsharp.so (on Linux)
• javalib: builds libpdnative and the jni wrapper
• clean: removes the object files
• clobber: removes the linked library files
• install: installs libpd C library (& C++ if built) and headers, set location with prefix= (default: /usr/local)
• uninstall: removes libpd C library and headers, set location with prefix= (default: /usr/local)

Makefile options allow for conditional compilation of libpd util and pd extra externals sources into libpd as well as other options:

• UTIL=true, compiles libpd_wrapper/util ringbuffer and print concatenator
• EXTRA=true, compiles pure-data/extra externals which are then inited in libpd_init()
• DEBUG=true, compiles libpd with -Wall & no optimizations
• LOCALE=true, set the number format to the default "C" locale*
• PORTAUDIO=true, compiles libpd with portaudio support (currently JAVA jni only)

For example, to build libpd with both util and extra:

make UTIL=true EXTRA=true

Note: cpplib is automatically built with UTIL=true as it uses the ringbuffer

* Setting the number locale explictly may be necessary if you run into certain numbers not being read correctly when opening patches. See libpd#130 for more info.

If you need to add custom search paths to the CFLAGS, you can specify them when building via:

make CFLAGS="-I/usr/local/lib"

Glue for using libpd with Java, C#, Objective C, C++ and Python. Feel free to improve or add support for other languages such as Lua.

Contains small sample programs and tests in the various supported langauges.

libpd.xcodeproj provides an Xcode project to build libpd + the Obj-C wrapper as a static library for iOS & Mac OSX. Drag the libpd project into your existing Xcode project, then add libpd-ios (or libpd-osx) to the Linked Frameworks and Libraries in the General tab of your project target.

For detailed instructions, see Working with libpd in Xcode

If you are unfamiliar with how static libraries work or how to use them in Xcode, see this useful tutorial.

Note: libpd is tested with the release versions of Xcode. It is recommended that you avoid using beta or developer preview versions.

Ready-made binaries for Java are available at libpd-java-build: https://github.com/wivlaro/libpd-java-build/blob/master/libpd.jar (may not be up to date)

If you are using Xcode to build iOS apps, you can use CocoaPods to add libpd to your project.

Use the following in your CocoaPods podfile:

pod 'libpd', :git => 'https://github.com/libpd/libpd', :submodules => true

LibPD is available as a NuGet package. If your platform's native dll is not included, you have to build it yourself with make csharplib and copy the resulting file to the output directory. Batch scripts for compilations on Windows with MinGW64 are included.

The C# library expects a file libpdcsharp.dll in its folder. Before using the project, you need to compile it.

Include csharp/LibPdBinding.csproj in your solution and reference the project in your application.

The wrapper can be built with MinGW-w64.

You need to install msys2, preferably the version for i686, because that version can build the 64bit versions as well.

Install msys2 using the instructions on the download page.

Install make and gcc by running pacman -S msys/make mingw32/mingw-w64-i686-gcc mingw64/mingw-w64-x86_64-gcc from the msys2 console. You can search for packages in msys2 with pacman -S -s <searchterm>.

For the 64 bit version of msys2 you also need to install winpthread by running pacman -S msys/mingw-w64-cross-winpthreads-git.

Edit mingw32_build_csharp.bat or mingw64_build_csharp.bat and execute it to create the native dll. You probably only need to change the variable for %MSYS2%. Usually you want the 32 bit version, as it will work on 64 bit Windows as well, but Unity 5 needs the 64 bit version.

For the 64 bit version, you also must use libs/mingw64/libwinptread-1.dll instead of libs/mingw32/libwinpthread-1.dll.

For a current version of libwinpthread-1.dll search in your msys2 installation folders.

If you want to use the library on Linux with Mono, you need the following changes to the LibPdBinding project:

• Compile the so file with make csharplib.
• Remove libpdcsharp.dll and libwinpthread-1.dll from LibPdBinding project.
• Add libpdcsharp.so to the LibPdBinding project.
• Set "Copy to Output Directory" for libpdcsharp.so to "Copy always"