Concept: datatypes, conversions

Hello!

I had a question about vectors some weeks ago, but it’s still not
everything clear to me.

I understand that converting a datastream to vector changes the
organisation of the data, or makes chunks of data that are processed as
a data block. For example you can feed the fft-blocks only vectors. What
is the organisation when it’s not vector?

There are some blocks converting to and from streams. What is a strem,
what is the difference to a vector, where do I need it?
How is serial and parallel connected to this?
Can give stream_to_streams any insight?

There is bytes_to_syms. I guess it’s for some kind of modulation scheme
like ASK. Doxygen docs say:
Convert stream of bytes to stream of +/- 1 symbols.
input: stream of bytes; output: stream of float
What does it do exactly, how can I convert it back, is there some link
to symbols in QPSK?

I saw data types c (complex), f (float), short (int, x bits), i
(integer, y bits), v (vector), p (parallel, alias to vector(?))
Is that all? What about char and uchar (float_to_char, float_to_uchar)?
vector is a type of organisation and can hold any of the other types,
excluded vector and parallel of course. Right?
What are x and y? Are the integer types signed or unsigned?

Is it possible to use any implicit conversion or is every conversion to
be done with [type1]to[type2] (like short_to_float)?

I hope some answers to this questions are able to enlighten my
understanding of GNURadio :slight_smile:

Patrick

Engineers motto: cheap, good, fast: choose any two
Patrick S.
Student of Telematik, Techn. University Graz, Austria

Ping!

Anyone here who likes to comment my questions? I’d like to add it to the
wiki, in best quality.

Patrick

Engineers motto: cheap, good, fast: choose any two
Patrick S.
Student of Telematik, Techn. University Graz, Austria