In one of my scripts I need the file name:
set input to choose file multiple selections allowed yes
tell application "System Events"
set {nameInfo, sourcePath} to {name of item 1 of input, POSIX path of container of item 1 of input}
end tell
But if there is a "/" in the file name e.g. "soso/lala.txt" the name comes back as "soso: lala.txt".
I also tried:
do shell script "basename " & item 1 of input
but then only "lala.txt" arrives. Can I trick it somehow to get "soso/lala.txt" in return?
Colons and slashes in file names are error-prone in AppleScript because colons are path separators in HFS paths (the default AppleScript type) and slashes are path separators in POSIX paths
Two suggestions:
Use displayed name
set input to choose file with multiple selections allowed
tell application "System Events"
set {nameInfo, sourcePath} to {displayed name of item 1 of input, POSIX path of container of item 1 of input}
end tell
Use the Finder
set input to choose file with multiple selections allowed
tell application "Finder"
set {nameInfo, sourcePath} to {name of item 1 of input, POSIX path of (container of item 1 of input as text)}
end tell
Related
Here's our situation:
We have a list of file names and/or full file paths (we can generate either)
The files in our list are all contained under one folder, but scattered across multiple sub-folders. (There are hundreds of items in our select list from thousands of possible files. Selecting manually isn't an option)
We've got the root folder open in list view and all sub-folders, sub-sub etc disclosure-opened (btw thanks to http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20030218164922494 for the shortcut "command, option, control and shift when pressing the right arrow")
With all files visible under one window open we want to automatically select all the items in our file list so that they can then be dragged at once to an application.
I do not believe that with basic AppleScript one can programmatically select multiple items in Finder which span throughout different folders and subfolders within a given folder in one window. Maybe with Cocoa-AppleScript, don't know, however if Avid can open files from file aliases, then the following example AppleScript code is a viable option.
The example AppleScript code makes the following assumptions:
There is a plain text file containing the fully qualified POSIX pathnames of the target files to be processed with Avid and the name of the file is: List of Files to Process with Avid.txt
The name of the folder containing the aliases is: Aliases of Files to Process with Avid
The Desktop is used as the location in the filesystem that the aforementioned file and folder exists, to be processed by Avid.
Obviously these settings can be changed as needed/wanted, see the comments in the code.
Example AppleScript code:
-- # Set the value of the following three property variables:
-- #
-- # The value of 'thisLocation' is an colon-delimited path string, e.g. 'path to desktop as string' returns: "Macintosh HD:Users:me:Desktop:"
-- # NOTE: When not using 'path to (folder)' where 'folder' is a 'folder constant' , the special folder for which to return the path, the value should be in the form of an colon-delimited path string.
-- # See: https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/AppleScript/Conceptual/AppleScriptLangGuide/reference/ASLR_cmds.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40000983-CH216-SW19
-- #
-- # The value of 'theListFilename' is the name of the plain text file containing the fully quilified pathnames of the target files to be opened in Avid.
-- # The value of 'theFolderName' is the name of the temporary folder the temporary aliases will be created in. This folder gets created new each run with new aliases.
-- #
-- # NOTE: For ease of use, as each run is presumed to be temporary to get that job run done, the location of the 'theListFilename' and 'theFolderName' are both in 'thisLocation'.
property thisLocation : (path to desktop as string)
property theListFilename : "List of Files to Process with Avid.txt"
property theFolderName : "Aliases of Files to Process with Avid"
-- # The remaining code is tokenized and should not need to be modified.
tell application "Finder"
if (exists thisLocation & theListFilename) then
tell current application to set theList to read alias (thisLocation & theListFilename)
else
display dialog "The file, \"" & theListFilename & "\", was not found at the expected location." buttons {"OK"} ¬
default button 1 with title "Missing File" with icon 0
return
end if
set theFolderPathname to thisLocation & theFolderName
if not (exists theFolderPathname) then
make new folder at thisLocation with properties {name:theFolderName}
else
move theFolderPathname to trash
make new folder at thisLocation with properties {name:theFolderName}
end if
repeat with i from 1 to length of theList
try
make new alias file at theFolderPathname to POSIX file (paragraph i of theList)
end try
end repeat
reveal theFolderPathname
activate
-- delay 1 -- # In necessary, uncomment and adjust value as appropriate.
select every item of alias theFolderPathname
end tell
In Script Editor, save this script and an application, e.g. Select Files to Process with Avid, and then run as needed after replacing the e.g. List of Files to Process with Avid.txt with the current set of target files to be processed with Avid.
The script does the following:
Checks to see the file e.g. List of Files to Process with Avid.txt exists and if not displays error message and exits.
Checks to see if the folder e.g. Aliases of Files to Process with Avid exist and if not creates it, and if it exists, moves it to the Trash and creates it anew, for the new run of target files to be processed.
Creates an alias of each file listed, as a fully qualified POSIX pathname, in the file e.g.: List of Files to Process with Avid.txt
Opens the folder, e.g. Select Files to Process with Avid, in Finder and selects the aliases.
You are now ready to drag and drop the selected aliases to Avid.
Note: This script assumes the fully qualified POSIX pathnames of the target files to be processes with Avid do not contain linefeeds, carriage returns and or null characters in their pathnames.
This works using the latest version of Sierra.
I was not able to figure out a way to selectively select files in folders with subfolders with subfolders etc. The only solution I was able to come up with was to create folder called “Aliases” and have AppleScript create alias files to all of the ”selected files” and store all of the aliases in the aliases folder. From there you can drag all of the files and drop them into your application as you desired
If you have a plain text file containing POSIX path filenames, each on a separate line like the example in this next image, this version will load the pathnames from the text file directly into the script. Just save this script as an application. You can drag text files directly onto the icon of the app because the code is set up to be a droplet
global theFile
property theInfo : missing value
property theName : missing value
property theList : {}
property theList2 : {}
property aliasFolder : (path to desktop as text) & "Aliases"
on open theFiles
set theInfo to info for theFiles
set theName to POSIX path of theFiles
getLinesofFileAsList(theName)
tell application "Finder"
if not (exists of alias aliasFolder) then
make new folder at (path to desktop as text) with properties {name:"Aliases"}
end if
delete every item of alias aliasFolder
end tell
repeat with i from 1 to count of theList
try
set theResult to POSIX file (item i of theList) as text
set end of theList2 to theResult
tell application "Finder"
set theAliases to make new alias file at aliasFolder to theResult
end tell
end try
end repeat
delay 0.5
tell application "Finder"
activate
delay 0.5
set hmmm to reveal aliasFolder
delay 0.5
set hmmm to select every item of alias aliasFolder
activate hmmm
end tell
end open
on getLinesofFileAsList(theName)
set theFile to theName
set theFile to POSIX path of theName
set theList to read POSIX file theFile as text
set saveTID to AppleScript's text item delimiters
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to linefeed
set theList to paragraphs of theList
if last item of theList is "" then
set theList to reverse of rest of reverse of theList
end if
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to saveTID
end getLinesofFileAsList
--on run
-- -- Handle the case where the script is launched without any dropped files
--end run
i am creating an applescript to create a file with property list elements but without the .plist extension!
my issue is if i use a dialog to get the name of the file eg.
tell application "SystemUIServer"
display dialog "Enter filename :- " buttons {"Generate file"} default answer "Generate Keyfile"
set fileName to text returned of result
and create the file on the desktop like so
set text_file to (path to desktop)'s POSIX path & "" & quoted form of fileName & ".NEWextention"
finally i add elements to the .plist
tell application "System Events"
tell (make new property list file with properties {name:text_file})
make new property list item at end with properties {kind:string, name:"regName", value:"FOO"}
make new property list item at end with properties {kind:string, name:"regNumber", value:"BAR" as text}
end tell
end tell
end tell
however the file that is created is has '' when quoted from fileName and still has the .plist extention.
eg input :- myfile
output:- 'myfile'.NEWextention.plist
when i want
myfile.NEWextention
how can i achieve this in applescript?
any help would be greatly appreciated!
many thanks in advance.
below is the fixed code thanks to #McUsr
without his help i would have been at the same point for over 6 months of trial and error
tell application "SystemUIServer"
display dialog "Enter FileName :- " buttons {"Generate file"} default answer "Generate file"
set FileName to text returned of result
set text_file to (path to desktop folder as text) & FileName & ".plist"
set dateStamp to do shell script "date"
tell application "System Events"
tell (make new property list file with properties {name:text_file})
make new property list item at end with properties {kind:string, name:"Name", value:FileName}
make new property list item at end with properties {kind:string, name:"Date", value:dateStamp}
end tell
end tell
end tell
tell application "Finder"
set name extension of file text_file to "newExt"
end tell
You can make it happen afterwards you are done processing it with System Events, by Finder, (set name extension of file "Hfs:path:to:file:with:name.ext" to "new-ext").
But I am not sure if you can expect System Events to regard the file as a property list file, containing property list items afterwards. It is still worth a try though. :)
This is how you must change the name extension, as this don't work with System Events (name extension is a read only property).
tell application "Finder"
set mf to (path to desktop folder as text) & "labels.txt"
set name extension of file mf to "text"
end tell
Use the HFS path of the file, aka: Macintosh Hd:Users:You:path:file.ext, and not the posix path. And don't use quoted form of det path.
I want to make an automator app which creates an empty file in current directory.
I did some google search and found:
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20050219134457298 and http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20100509134904820
However, I want to do something more powerful.
If the specified file already exists, I want to show a warning instead of overwriting the original file, which is what one of the above link does. (The other one creates a text file using textEdit. I do not want to create text file. I want an empty file like what linux/unix does)
I already figured out how to do most of the part, but
How can check whether a file exists in current directory using applescript??
How can I concatenate two variable in applescript?
Checking if a file exists (assuming thefullpath is already set as in the referenced question):
tell application "Finder"
if exists POSIX file thefullpath then
--do something here like
display alert "Warning: the file already exists"
end if
end tell
Not sure what you mean by the second part but if you want to concatenate strings stored in var1 and var2 you could simply do
var1 & var2
Something I have been using a lot of late for this sort of thing is the command /bin/test
The test test for the existence of in this case a file
if (do shell script "/bin/test -e " & quoted form of (POSIX path of theFile) & " ; echo $?") is "1" then
-- 1 is false
--do something
end if
The -e option:
-e file True if file exists (regardless of type).
The are tons of other test options shown in the /bin/test man page
The following code, adapted from your second link, is usually right, but it doesn't always work. The current directory is better specified as the directory of the document that is being opened which is most likely from the Finder's front window, but not necessarily. I like to write code that will work no matter what.
on run {input, parameters}
tell application "Finder"
set currentPath to insertion location as text
set x to POSIX path of currentPath
display dialog "currentPath: " & (x as text)
end tell
return x
end run
I wrote a whole "Run AppleScript" action to put things into context:
on run {input, parameters}
# count the number of files
set numFiles to 0
repeat with f in input
# warn the user that folders are not processed in this app
tell application "Finder"
if (kind of f is "Folder") then
display dialog "The item: " & (f as text) & " is a folder. Only files are allowed. Do you want to continue processing files or do you want to cancel?"
else
set numFiles to numFiles + 1
end if
end tell
end repeat
# require that at least one file is being opened
if numFiles < 1 then
display alert "Error: the application Test1.app cannot be run because it requires at least one file as input"
error number -128
end if
# get the current directory from the first file
set theFirstFile to (item 1 of input)
tell application "System Events" to set theFolder to (container of theFirstFile)
# ask the user for a file name
set thefilename to text returned of (display dialog "Create file named:" default answer "filename")
# create the file
tell application "System Events" to set thefullpath to (POSIX path of theFolder) & "/" & thefilename
set theCommand to "touch \"" & thefullpath & "\""
do shell script theCommand
# return the input as the output
return input
end run
The "touch" command is OK. If the file doesn't exist, it is created and if it does exist, only the modification date is changed (which isn't too bad) but it doesn't overwrite the file. If your file is being overwritten, it's not the touch command that is doing it.
I changed the default file name to remove the extension ".txt" This extension may default to being opened by TextEdit.app, but you can change this in the Finder by choosing "Get Info" for a file and changing the "Open With" property. You can change which application opens the file with that extension or you can change them all. For example, all of my ".txt" files are opened with BBEdit.app
Will you vote my answer up?
Another option that doesn't require Finder or System Events is to try to coerce a POSIX file or file object to an alias:
try
POSIX file "/tmp/test" as alias
true
on error
false
end try
(This is a new edit from a previous question of mine which achieved -3 votes. Hope this new one has a better qualification)
I need to create an Automator service to organize a high amount of files into folders. I work with illustrator and from each .ai file I create 3 more formats: [name.pdf], [name BAJA.jpg] and [name.jpg], thats 4 files in total
My problem is that during the week I repeat this process to more than 90 different .ai files. So 90 files * 4 is 360 independent files all into the some project folder.
I want to grab all 4 related files into one folder, and set the folder name as the same as the .ai file.
Since all the file names are identical (except one), I thought of telling the finder to grab all the files with the same name, copy the name, create a folder and put this files inside, but I have a file name variant [name LOW.jpg] Maybe I can tell the script to strip that work as an exception.
That way I will all 4 the files unified into one folder.
Thank you in advance
Update: This problem was originally posted back in 2013, now I have a solution. People help me assembled this script to fit my needs.
I added this as a service and assigned a keyboard shurtcut on MacOs.
This is the code:
on run {input, parameters} -- create folders from file names and move
set output to {} -- this will be a list of the moved files
repeat with anItem in the input -- step through each item in the input
set {theContainer, theName, theExtension} to (getTheNames from anItem)
try
# check for a suffix and strip it off for the folder name
if theName ends with " BAJA" then
set destination to (makeNewFolder for (text 1 thru -6 of theName) at theContainer)
else
set destination to (makeNewFolder for theName at theContainer)
end if
tell application "Finder"
move anItem to destination
set the end of the output to the result as alias -- success
end tell
on error errorMessage -- duplicate name, permissions, etc
log errorMessage
# handle errors if desired - just skip for now
end try
end repeat
return the output -- pass on the results to following actions
end run
to getTheNames from someItem -- get a container, name, and extension from a file item
tell application "System Events" to tell disk item (someItem as text)
set theContainer to the path of the container
set {theName, theExtension} to {name, name extension}
end tell
if theExtension is not "" then
set theName to text 1 thru -((count theExtension) + 2) of theName -- just the name part
set theExtension to "." & theExtension
end if
return {theContainer, theName, theExtension}
end getTheNames
to makeNewFolder for theChild at theParent -- make a new child folder at the parent location if it doesn't already exist
set theParent to theParent as text
if theParent begins with "/" then set theParent to theParent as POSIX file as text
try
return (theParent & theChild) as alias
on error errorMessage -- no folder
log errorMessage
tell application "Finder" to make new folder at theParent with properties {name:theChild}
return the result as alias
end try
end makeNewFolder
Hope this helps.
It's a pity you get downvoted as I, personally, enjoy answering these sorts of questions, as it helps me practise and improve my own skills.
Thanks for posting your solution. I think it's a great gesture and others will find it useful.
This script is a bit shorter than and uses "System Events" instead of "Finder", so will be quicker for large numbers of files:
set IllustratorOutputFolder to "/Users/CK/Desktop/example"
tell application "System Events" to ¬
set ai_files to every file in folder IllustratorOutputFolder ¬
whose name extension is "ai"
set Output to {}
repeat with ai_file in ai_files
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "."
get name of ai_file
get text items of result
set basename to reverse of rest of reverse of result as text
tell application "System Events"
get (every file in folder IllustratorOutputFolder ¬
whose name begins with basename)
move result to (make new folder ¬
in folder IllustratorOutputFolder ¬
with properties {name:basename})
end tell
set end of Output to result
end repeat
return Output -- list of lists of moved files
Just an alternative way of doing things. Not that it's better or worse, but just a different solution.
You could also save this as script.sh (in TextEdit in plain text mode) and run it with bash script.sh in Terminal:
cd ~/Target\ Folder/
for f in *.ai *.pdf *.jpg; do
dir=${f%.*}
dir=${dir% LOW}
mkdir -p "$dir"
mv "$f" "$dir"
done
How do I find the name of an executing AppleScript?
REASON: I want to create a script that changes its behavior based on its filename. Something like:
if myname is "Joe" then ACTION1
else if myname is "Frank" then ACTION2
else ACTION3
The normal way to get the name is by using "name of me". However applescripts are run by applescript runner so when you use that on a script you get "Applescript Runner" as the name. If you compile your script as an application then "name of me" will work. The only way to get the script name is by getting its path and extracting the name. Something like this would thus work for scripts...
getMyName()
tell me to display dialog result
on getMyName()
set myPath to path to me as text
if myPath ends with ":" then
set n to -2
else
set n to -1
end if
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ":"
set myName to text item n of myPath
if (myName contains ".") then
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "."
set myName to text 1 thru text item -2 of myName
end if
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""
return myName
end getMyName
Here's a method that works for all of the following:
*.scpt files (compiled AppleScript files; run in AppleScript Editor or with osascript)
*.applescript files (uncompiled AppleScript files; run in AppleScript Editor or with osascript)
command-line scripts that directly contain AppleScript (marked as executable and starting with #!/usr/bin/env osascript):
*.app files created with AppleScript Editor
*.app files created with Automator that contain AppleScript actions
Note: By contrast, it does not work for the following:
OS X services created with Automator that contain AppleScript actions (special *.workflow files) - always reports 'WorkflowServiceRunner[.xpc]'
general-purpose *.workflow files created with Automator that contain ApplesScript actions and that are run with automator - always reports 'Automator Runner[.app]'
Get the name of the running script, including filename extension (.scpt, .app, or .applescript, as the case may be):
tell application "System Events" to set myname to get name of (path to me)
If you want to remove the filename extension with a single command, use the following, do shell script-based approach:
tell application "System Events" to set myname to do shell script "rawName=" & quoted form of (get name of (path to me)) & "; printf '%s' \"${rawName%.*}\""
Here's an all-AppleScript alternative that is more verbose (yet concise by AppleScript standards):
tell application "System Events"
set myname to name of (path to me)
set extension to name extension of (path to me)
end tell
if length of extension > 0 then
# Make sure that `text item delimiters` has its default value here.
set myname to items 1 through -(2 + (length of extension)) of myname as text
end if
Finally, here's a variation: a subroutine that you can call with set myname to getMyName():
on getMyName()
local myName, tidSaved
tell application "System Events"
set myAlias to path to me -- alias to the file/bundle of the running script
set myName to name of myAlias -- filename with extension, if any.
if name extension of myAlias is not "" then -- strip away extension
set {tidSaved, AppleScript's text item delimiters} to {AppleScript's text item delimiters, {""}}
set myName to items 1 through -(2 + (length of (get name extension of myAlias))) of myName as text
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to tidSaved
end if
end tell
return myName
end getMyName
An easier way to find out the base part of the path is using name of:
tell application "Finder"
set p to path to me
set nam to name of file p as text
end tell
Maybe this:
set appname to name of current application