I do see your point on why it doesn't make sense. I had to read through it a few times. I didn't know it was still an outstanding bug, maybe when it's squashed it will make proper sense. I am using an IPAC as input. It's the only input I have connected but when I go into Input Configuration it shows 5 devices detected though. I was assuming since I am loading drivers for 4 controllers as default through the RetroPie Setup--Option 829 (Xbox / Xbox 360 gamepad driver) and one IPAC are the makeup of the 5 devices I hope.
It's been a whole lot of years but I originally went to school for programming and mainly worked with the wordy COBOL, RPG, Fortran and a bit of C for doing simple conversions of data. Basically I would read comma, space or whatever delimited data into a structure with a subscript, rearrange the data and save it back out. Then import it into shipping systems like UPS, FedEx. Basically it was names, addresses, city, state, etc. I can follow a bit or least some of it makes sense.