Making AudioChannelSet::getDescription virtual

[MaxWalley]

Currently we can create our own AudioChannelSets by using the functions such as addChannel() etc. With these custom channel sets the description output by getDescription is simply ‘unknown’. This makes it difficult to display the description of custom channel sets on a GUI or to use them in many other scenarios. If this function was virtual we could inherit from AudioChannelSet and create custom descriptions for custom channel sets that would help with this.

[reuk]

Is there a reason that the approach suggested here wouldn’t work?

Creating Custom AudioChannelSet

No, if you look at the implementation of getDescription you’ll see that it’s just checking which channels are set, and returning a different string based on these channels. The name isn’t stored inside the AudioChannelSet anywhere. If you need to add custom description strings, I’d recommend writing a custom function: String getCustomDescription (const AudioChannelSet& channelSet) { if (channelSet == getMyCustomChannelSet()) return "Custom channel set"; return channelSet.getDescriptio…

[MaxWalley]

That would work, it just seems unnecessary to use a whole new function when the original one could be virtualised. It also means that all the current named channel sets need to be derived to use that function to just pass through getDescription. Also a combination of original AudioChannelSets using getDescription and derived ones using getCustomDescription could not be used since it’s 2 separate functions that need to be called.