Constant to String in AppleScript - applescript

Question

I have the following line of code:
tell application "iTunes"
if player state is playing then
set trackMediaKind to media kind of current track
display dialog trackMediaKind
end if
end tell
When I print trackMediaKind I get the following: «constant ****kMdS»
In iTunes the media kind looks like:
Is there way to make it print Music instead of «constant ****kMdS»?
-Edit-
tell application "iTunes"
if player state is playing then
set trackMediaKind to media kind of current track
log trackMediaKind as string
end if
end tell
I ran the code up via the terminal by typing: osascript myscript.scpt it stills returns: «constant ****kMdS».

Answer 1

You need to change the following line of code from:
display dialog trackMediaKind
To:
display dialog trackMediaKind as string
If you really want it to display "Music" then you need to do something such as:
tell application "iTunes"
if player state is playing then
set trackMediaKind to media kind of current track
if trackMediaKind as string is "song" then
display dialog "Music"
end if
end if
end tell
BTW In the AppleScript Dictionary for iTunes (12.7.*) , looking at the properties of a track, the media kind shows:
media kind (alert tone/‌audiobook/‌book/‌home video/‌iTunesU/‌movie/‌song/‌music video/‌podcast/‌ringtone/‌TV show/‌voice memo/‌unknown) : the media kind of the track
In other words, you'll need to test the results against what could be returned and process it accordingly to your needs/wants if you want to display differently the returned. Also, anytime it returns things like e.g. «constant ****kMdS» try coercing to text with as string or as text.
Update to address the after the fact edit to your question:
While you didn't originally state in the OP you were running your script in Terminal using osascript, nonetheless there seems to be an issue between running the same code as a .scpt file in the two different environments. One would think that what works correctly in Script Editor, it would work correctly in Terminal using osascript, but in this particular case it doesn't.
The workaround in this particular case is to not use the .scpt file format and instead use a plain text format:
As an example, the following code should display a dialog box with "song" when a song track is playing iTunes and saved in Script Editor as Text, e.g. myscript.applescript, and then run in Terminal using: osascript myscript.applescript
tell application "iTunes"
if player state is playing then
set trackMediaKind to media kind of current track
display dialog trackMediaKind as string
end if
end tell
One can also use the AppleScript code in plain text format and make the file executable to be used directly without having to first type osascript on the command line. Save the following example AppleScript code using an osascript shebang.
#!/usr/bin/osascript
tell application "iTunes"
if player state is playing then
set trackMediaKind to media kind of current track
display dialog trackMediaKind as string
end if
end tell
Make executable with chmod in Terminal, e.g.:
chmod u+x myscript.applescript
Then, if it's in the current directory, execute the script using:
./myscript.applescript
Otherwise, use the pathname to it, if it's not in the PATH.
Note: With this method, it is not necessary to use the .applescript extension or any extension. It's a users preference, even though Script Editor uses that extension by default for plain text AppleScript code files.