Remove specific characters from highlighted text using AppleScript or Automator - applescript

I have a question and maybe someone can point me in the right direction.
I would like to be able to copy Text (mostly from "Get Info") and replace all the “.” with a space excluding the “.”before the file extension using AppleScript or Automator. I'd like to use this service when i right click and select the script or automator service.
E.G
Contraband.2012.DVDRip.htif-NYsIC.avi
will turn to
Contraband 2012 DVDRip htif-NYsIC.avi
I've search everywhere on this site and various places but I just cant seem to find what i need. I don’t know where to start writing this script. Is what i described even possible in apple script? I just need to be pointed in the right direction and I'll try and figure the rest out I'm just at a loss right now.
Thank's in advance.

You could use a Run Shell Script action like this:
for f; do
base=${f##*/}
[[ $base =~ .+\..+ ]] || continue
noext=${base%.*}
mv "$f" "${f%/*}/${noext//./ }.${base##*.}"
done
Set "Pass input" to "as arguments". ${f##*/} removes the longest */ pattern from the start of f and ${f%/*} removes the shortest /* pattern from the end of f.
You could also use a Run AppleScript action like this:
on run {input}
repeat with f in input
set text item delimiters to "."
tell application "Finder"
set ti to text items of (get name of (f as alias))
if number of ti > 2 then
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to " "
set name of (f as alias) to (items 1 thru -2 of ti as text) & "." & item -1 of ti
end if
end tell
end repeat
end run

Related

AppleScript and loading code libraries

Purely as an experiment, I’m trying to do something rather complex with AppleScript, mostly as an academic exercise more than anything, but I’m running into trouble. Here’s what’s happening.
First, I have a code library, called “ascr_code_library.scpt”, containing just one method:
on return_string_position(this_item, this_str, delim)
set old_delims to AppleScript's text item delimiters
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to delim
set this_list to text items of this_str
set found_pos to 0
repeat with i from 1 to the count of this_list
if item i of this_list is equal to this_item then set found_pos to i
end repeat
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to old_delims
return found_pos
end return_string_position
Then, I have this script, “test-2.scpt.” What it does is very simple, and pretty self-explanatory:
set scr_lib to load script (choose file with prompt "Please pick a library")
tell scr_lib
return_string_position("Who", "Who am I?", " ")
end tell
But what I get when I run the script and choose the file is the following error:
*“«data scpt4D617259332E303000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 . . . . . . . (etcetera, goes on fou five pages) . . . 1000101010CFADEDEAD» doesn’t understand the return_string_position message.”*
So where am I going wrong? It’s loading the script correctly, so far as I can tell. But where else could I be going wrong in such a simple script? I tried prefixing the method call with “my,” but that didn’t work either. Any ideas?
As mentioned in your previous question, I like this script better because it avoids delimiters and returns each instance.
on return_string_position(this_item, this_str)
set theWords to every word of this_str
set matchedWords to {}
repeat with i from 1 to count of theWords
set aWord to item i of theWords
if item i of theWords = this_item then set end of matchedWords to i
end repeat
return matchedWords
end return_string_position
return_string_position("very", "The coffee was very very very very very ... very hot.")
You can call the script like this:
run script file ((path to desktop as text) & "test 1.scpt") with parameters {"very", "The coffee was very very very very very ... very hot."}

Use Automator/Applescript to crop filenames after certain character?

I have a folder containing about 5000 files with names like:
Invoice 10.1 (2012) (Digital) (4-Attachments).pdf
Carbon Copy - Invoice No 02 (2010) (2 Copies) (Filed).pdf
01.Reciept #04 (Scanned-Copy).doc
I want to rename these files by removing everything from the first bracket onwards, so they look like this:
Invoice 10.1.pdf
Carbon Copy - Invoice No 02.pdf
01.Reciept #04.doc
I have found lots of scripts that will remove the last x letters, but nothing that will crop from a particular character.
Ideally I would like to use Automator, but I'm guess this might too complex for it. Any ideas?
Try:
set xxx to (choose folder)
tell application "Finder"
set yyy to every paragraph of (do shell script "ls " & POSIX path of xxx)
repeat with i from 1 to count of yyy
set theName to item i of yyy
set name of (file theName of xxx) to (do shell script "echo " & quoted form of theName & " | sed s'/ (.*)//'")
end repeat
end tell
The code posted by #adayzone will work, but there is no need to use sed for this – plain AppleScript will do, using offset:
set fullString to "Invoice 10.1 (2012) (Digital) (4-Attachments).pdf"
set trimmedString to text 1 thru ((offset of "(" in fullString) - 1) of fullString
-- trim trailing spaces
repeat while trimmedString ends with " "
set trimmedString to text 1 thru -2 of trimmedString
end repeat
this returns “Invoice 10.1". To split the file name into the name and extension, and re-add the extension, you can use System Events’ Disk-File-Folder suite, which will provide the handy name extension property you can store and re-add after trimming the name.
Assuming you use some Automator action to get the files to be processed, the full processing workflow would be to add an AppleScript action after the file selection part with the following code:
repeat with theFile in (input as list)
tell application "System Events"
set theFileAsDiskItem to disk item ((theFile as alias) as text)
set theFileExtension to name extension of theFileAsDiskItem
set fullString to name of theFileAsDiskItem
-- <insert code shown above here>
set name of theFileAsDiskItem to trimmedString & "." & theFileExtension
end tell
end repeat
If you want your Automator workflow to process the files any further, you will also have to create a list of aliases to the renamed files and return that from the AppleScript action (instead of input, which, of course, is not valid anymore).

Print to stdout from osascript/Applescript

I have some AppleScript code that I'm executing with osascript. This is part of a larger Perl program. I'd like to be able to print to stdout from the AppleScript, then have the Perl script process the output. But I haven't been able to print from within AppleScript. What should I do?
Here's what I've tried:
do shell script "echo Foo". Does not ouptut Foo.
This Google Groups discussion does some trickery to open /dev/fd/1. For me, I get an error of "File Macintosh HD:dev:fd:1 wasn't found"
Here's the script I'm running:
tell application "Safari"
set window_list to every window
repeat with the_window in window_list
set tab_list to every tab in the_window
repeat with the_tab in tab_list
set the_url to the URL of the_tab
-- I'd like to put a print statement here,
-- instead of display dialog
display dialog the_url
end repeat
end repeat
end tell
Since osascript will automatically print the last value of a program, I could collect the URLs into a list and print that. But then my Perl script would have to parse the list, remove quotes, etc. It seems like it should be more straightforward to just print one URL per line.
Thanks
I don't know how to do what you're asking and I don't know Perl, however I think you could make the parsing from perl simple if you collect your urls in a string instead of a list. Each url would be on a separate line of the string. Perl should be able to turn that into an array pretty easily and then do something with it. Something like the below applescript. Of course you can use a different separator in the applescript. I used "return" but it could just as easily be a "comma" or any other character you want. Whatever is easiest for you in perl to change the string to an array.
set urlString to ""
tell application "Safari"
set window_list to every window
repeat with the_window in window_list
set tab_list to every tab in the_window
repeat with the_tab in tab_list
set the_url to the URL of the_tab
set urlString to urlString & the_url & return
end repeat
end repeat
end tell
return text 1 thru -2 of urlString
I found that I can use 'log' to dump results to STDERR,
though I had to use Chrome instead of Safari:
#!/usr/bin/osascript
tell application "Chrome"
repeat with w in every window
repeat with t in tabs of w
log (get URL of t)
end repeat
end repeat
end tell
Just use log is OK.
MacBookPro:~ zxj5470$ cat demo.scpt
tell application "Terminal"
set WindowNum to get window count
log WindowNum
end tell
MacBookPro:~ zxj5470$ osascript demo.scpt
1

Iterating through file line by line in AppleScript?

I am trying to figure out how to iterate through a file line by line in AppleScript. Similar to a bash script like so:
for LINE in $(cat file)
do
echo ${LINE}
done
Any tips? Thanks!
I can't take credit for writing this, I lifted the code from a response to a post in the MacRumors forums.
tell application "Finder"
set Names to paragraphs of (read (choose file with prompt "Pick text file containing track names"))
repeat with nextLine in Names
if length of nextLine is greater than 0 then
--Do something with the next name, which is stored in "nextLine"
end if
end repeat
end tell
Original code credit to HexMonkey on the MacRumors forum.

Getting the file name of files dropped on the script

I made this Applescript script to create symbolic links.
Appart from POSIX path of, how can I get the file name, without the path, of the dropped file?
on open filelist
repeat with i in filelist
do shell script "ln -s " & POSIX path of i & " /Users/me/Desktop/symlink"
end repeat
end open
PS: I know this expects many files to be dropped and tries to create many links with the same name, which gives an error. Actually I copied this example from a website and as I don't know almost anything about Applescript, I don't know how to do this for a single file, help on that would be appreciated too.
I'm not sure what precisely you're trying to do, but I have a guess. Is the idea that you want to take every file dropped on the script and create a symbolic link to each one on the Desktop? So if I drop ~/look/at/me and ~/an/example, you'll have ~/Desktop/me and ~/Desktop/example? If that's what you want, then you're in luck: ln -s <file1> <file2> ... <directory> does exactly that. (Edit: Although you have to watch out for the two-argument case.) Thus, your code could look like this:
-- EDITED: Added the conditional setting of `dest` to prevent errors in the
-- two-arguments-to-ln case (see my comment).
on quoted(f)
return quoted form of POSIX path of f
end quoted
on open filelist
if filelist is {} then return
set dest to missing value
if (count of filelist) is 1 then
tell application "System Events" to set n to the name of item 1 of filelist
set dest to (path to desktop as string) & n
else
set dest to path to desktop
end if
set cmd to "ln -s"
repeat with f in filelist & dest
set cmd to cmd & " " & quoted(f)
end repeat
do shell script cmd
end open
Note the use of quoted form of; it wraps its argument in single quotes so executing in in the shell won't do anything funny.
If you want to get at the name of the file for another reason, you don't need to call out to the Finder; you can use System Events instead:
tell application "System Events" to get name of myAlias
will return the name of the file stored in myAlias.
Edit: If you want to do something to a single file, it's pretty easy. Instead of using repeat to iterate over every file, just perform the same action on the first file, accessed by item 1 of theList. So in this case, you might want something like this:
-- EDITED: Fixed the "linking a directory" case (see my comment).
on quoted(f)
return quoted form of POSIX path of f
end quoted
on open filelist
if filelist is {} then return
set f to item 1 of filelist
tell application "System Events" to set n to the name of f
do shell script "ln -s " & ¬
quoted(f) & " " & quoted((path to desktop as string) & n)
end open
It's pretty much the same, but we grab the first item in filelist and ignore the rest. Additionally, at the end, we display a dialog containing the name of the symlink, so the user knows what just happened.
As an example, you can work with the Finder instead of a shell script to get the name of a single file that is dropped on the script that is saved as an application. If you don't need the display dialog, you can remove it, but you have the file name as a variable to work with:
on open the_files
repeat with i from 1 to the count of the_files
tell application "Finder"
set myFileName to name of (item i of the_files)
end tell
display dialog "The file's name is " & myFileName
end repeat
end open

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