How pack handles the list message

The pack object is useful for combining int, float, and/or symbol messages into a single space-separated list. Messages that come in each inlet of pack are stored until a message comes in the left inlet, triggering output of the entire list.

The inlets of the pack object are all "typed", which is to say that each inlet expects a particular message type, either "i" for int, "f" for float, or "s" for symbol, specified by the typed-in arguments. Everything that comes into pack gets converted to one of those three specified types if it doesn't already match the specified type for that inlet. There is no allowed argument "l" for list in pack. Instead, if pack gets a list, it distributes the list items among all the subsequent inlets and stores them, as shown in the middle section of this example patch. If the list comes in the leftmost inlet, the items are distributed per inlet, and then the output is triggered. If a list comes in the rightmost inlet, only the first item of the list gets stored; the length of the output doesn't get extended to accommodate the incoming list, as demonstrated in the right part of this patch.

By contrast, the inlets of the join object are all untyped (type-agnostic). Whatever comes in each inlet gets stored in its entirety, and the result is joined into a single output list, with a space in between each inlet's message.