Access atoms using SDK v. 8.0.3

[inspiralpatterns]

I am experiencing troubles in re-using the code I wrote 6 years ago with the new SDK.
Particularly, I am not able to retrieve the value from the atom I pass in to the object at instantiation type.
The code looks like

DLShift(t_symbol * sym, long ac, t_atom * av) {
    setupIO(1, 1);
    /*init conditions*/
        if (ac < 1) post ("syntax error: ratio required");
        else {
            if (av->a_type == A_LONG) m_ratio = atom_getlong(av);
            else if (av->a_type == A_FLOAT) m_ratio = atom_getfloat(av);
            else if (av->a_type == A_SYM) post ("not a number");
        }

but every time I get something like ratio: 0.00.
I tried to switch using something like:

if (av->a_type == A_LONG) m_ratio = av->a_w.w_long;
else if (av->a_type == A_FLOAT) m_ratio = a_w.w_float;

but nothing, same response as above.

Has anyone experienced any troubles in this?