minding the gaps

Running AppleScript from the Command Line

Russ Leseberg — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 23:32:25 +0000

Running AppleScript, and thus AppleScrunix, from the command line is quite simple. The command is osascript, see the osascript(1) Mac OS X Manual Page for more information. Open the application “Terminal” and type “osascript” followed by a space at the prompt ($). Next type the full path to the script or simply drag the script icon onto the terminal window and let terminal insert the path. The final command should look like below.

$ osascript /path/to/script.scpt

AppleScript | AppleScrunix – Syncing Two Folders [Directories]

Russ Leseberg — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 21:42:21 +0000

In this AppleScrunix sample we combine AppleScripts ability to easily add user interaction in selection of a folder/directory, with the power of the Unix command rsync. rsync is a highly versatile and powerful tool. Spend some time reviewing the man page for rsync and you will see what I mean.

The following snippet is ready to run. Just copy and paste into AppleScript Editor:

set sDir to POSIX path of (choose folder with prompt "Select source")

set dDir to POSIX path of (choose folder with prompt "Select destination")

do shell script "rsync -zrtpl –stats –delete -e ssh " & quoted form of (sDir) & " " & quoted form of (dDir)

I am not going to explain anything in this post about the script’s construction, syntax or arguments. I plan to delve into these matters in subsequent posts. However, if you have specific questions, I will be happy to answer them.

For this exercise use two folders. The first one is your source directory/folder and contains the files and folders you want synchronized. The second one is empty. If you run the script in the editor you will get feedback like below in the result box. Run the script… First Run shows the number of files transferred when syncing the first time. Run it again… Second Run shows the number of files transferred when syncing the second time. Note that it is zero. rsync compared the two folders and saw there were no changes so no files needed to be updated.

First Run:
Number of files: 168
Number of files transferred: 139
Total file size: 48894704 bytes
Total transferred file size: 48894654 bytes
Literal data: 48894654 bytes
Matched data: 0 bytes
File list size: 3470
File list generation time: 0.001 seconds
File list transfer time: 0.000 seconds
Total bytes sent: 48910444
Total bytes received: 3252

sent 48910444 bytes received 3252 bytes 32609130.67 bytes/sec
total size is 48894704 speedup is 1.00

Second Run:
Number of files: 168
Number of files transferred: 0
Total file size: 48894704 bytes
Total transferred file size: 0 bytes
Literal data: 0 bytes
Matched data: 0 bytes
File list size: 3470
File list generation time: 0.001 seconds
File list transfer time: 0.000 seconds
Total bytes sent: 3486
Total bytes received: 20

sent 3486 bytes received 20 bytes 7012.00 bytes/sec
total size is 48894704 speedup is 13946.01

A Dance with ThunderBolt – Update 2

Russ Leseberg — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 01:59:11 +0000

At the stroke of midnight tonight, I will have completed 3 full months of testing of a real-time web tracking solution that depends heavily on ThunderBolt technology. Though I continue to be plagued with drive issues, a single drive has been fast enough to deal with the current read/write requirements.

A Dance with ThunderBolt – Update

Russ Leseberg — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 04:47:15 +0000

Initial testing of the LaCie ThunderBolt drives on a MacMini Server looked pretty good… That is after I returned the fist MacMini Server that had a dead Thunderbolt port. More in the next day or so….

A Dance with ThunderBolt

Russ Leseberg — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 01:59:05 +0000

I began testing Lacie’s Big Little Disk ThunderBolt drives this last week. Lacie makes some pretty big claims for these little guys and I am determined to find out if they measure up. I have several coding projects in the hopper that will definitely put them to the test. More soon.

iPirate – The Bucs Go iPad

Russ Leseberg — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 21:58:14 +0000

A month before the launch of Apple’s original iPad, I predicted that sports teams would replace their playbooks with the tablet computer, see Countdown to iPad – Playbook (Use Case 18).

Recently the Tampa Bay Buccaneers bought iPads for their players to do just that, see Tampa Bay Buccaneers buy each player an iPad to hold playbook, videos.

As further predicted, the Buccaneer coaches and players not only watch plays on the iPads, but if the devices are ever lost, “You’ve got a way to wipe (everything) off with the push of a button,” according to Tampa Bay Bucs Coach, Raheem Morris. ~ quote from tampabay.com article.

iPad: Team Player

In the Countdown to iPad Series (early 2010), I presented possible use cases for the amazing device that had yet to be released into the wild. Now that iPads have been with us for more than a year, it’s interesting to see just how many predictions have come true.

AppleScript | AppleScrunix – Listing files in a folder

Russ Leseberg — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 23:09:08 +0000

One of the most common uses for AppleScript, and thus AppleScrunix, is to process files in a folder/directory. In order to process them you must first list the files. Though I find the listing of a folder of files, just as easy using straight AppleScript as I do with AppleScrunix, I much prefer the variations of returned lists in AppleScrunix.

A simple file listing in AppleScript looks like:




tell application "System Events" to set fileList to name items in folder "/Users/avail/Desktop/PDFs"

Result: {“001_FILENAME.PDF”, “001_FILENAME.txt”, “002_FILENAME.PDF”, “003_FILENAME.PDF”, “004_FILENAME.PDF”, “010_FILENAME.PDF”, “011_FILENAME.PDF”, “016_FILENAME.PDF”}

The same example in AppleScrunix looks like:




set fileList to paragraphs of (do shell script "ls /Users/avail/Desktop/PDFs/")

Same Result: {“001_FILENAME.PDF”, “001_FILENAME.txt”, “002_FILENAME.PDF”, “003_FILENAME.PDF”, “004_FILENAME.PDF”, “010_FILENAME.PDF”, “011_FILENAME.PDF”, “016_FILENAME.PDF”}

If all I had gained was a slightly shorter line of code it wouldn’t be worth it. However, now that we have entered the world of AppleScrunix, we can leverage the power of unix commands with just a few additional characters.

Simply adding an asterisk to my command, I get a list of file paths and not just file names:




set fileList to paragraphs of (do shell script "ls /Users/avail/Desktop/PDFs/*")

Result: {“/Users/avail/Desktop/PDFs/001_FILENAME.PDF”, “/Users/avail/Desktop/PDFs/001_FILENAME.txt”, “/Users/avail/Desktop/PDFs/002_FILENAME.PDF”, “/Users/avail/Desktop/PDFs/003_FILENAME.PDF”, “/Users/avail/Desktop/PDFs/004_FILENAME.PDF”, “/Users/avail/Desktop/PDFs/010_FILENAME.PDF”, “/Users/avail/Desktop/PDFs/011_FILENAME.PDF”, “/Users/avail/Desktop/PDFs/016_FILENAME.PDF”}

What if I just want to list the pdf files and not the text (txt) files? By just adding ‘*PDF’ I get the desired result:




set fileList to paragraphs of (do shell script "ls /Users/avail/Desktop/PDFs/*PDF")

Result: {“/Users/avail/Desktop/PDFs/001_FILENAME.PDF”, “/Users/avail/Desktop/PDFs/002_FILENAME.PDF”, “/Users/avail/Desktop/PDFs/003_FILENAME.PDF”, “/Users/avail/Desktop/PDFs/004_FILENAME.PDF”, “/Users/avail/Desktop/PDFs/010_FILENAME.PDF”, “/Users/avail/Desktop/PDFs/011_FILENAME.PDF”, “/Users/avail/Desktop/PDFs/016_FILENAME.PDF”}

Or, what if I just want to list the files numbered between 010 and 019? By just adding ’01*’ I get the desired list of files:




set fileList to paragraphs of (do shell script "ls /Users/avail/Desktop/PDFs/01*")

Result: {“/Users/avail/Desktop/PDFs/010_FILENAME.PDF”, “/Users/avail/Desktop/PDFs/011_FILENAME.PDF”, “/Users/avail/Desktop/PDFs/016_FILENAME.PDF”}

Study the man page for ‘ls’ and you will find a treasure trove of small command modifications that will make a big difference in your solutions.

AppleScript / AppleScrunix Examples – using the do shell script command in AppleScript.

Using Applescript & Python To Set Title Case (AppleScrunix)

Russ Leseberg — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 13:02:16 +0000

One way in which Apple has turned the Mac into the most powerful scripting/automation platform on the planet has been to provide a litany of scriptable languages as part of the standard install. Just some of the languages you will find in Mac OS X are JavaScript, Ruby, Python, and of course AppleScript. I refer to the mashing all these languages together as AppleScrunix.

Each of the languages has strengths and weaknesses. By bringing them all together on a single platform, and making it easy for them to be used together, Apple has put an amazing amount of automation power in our hands.

As shown in previous posts AppleScrunix allows me to work primarily in AppleScript and draw from other languages when my scripting language of choice comes up a bit short.

I often run across the need to do ‘simple’ title case conversion. ‘Simple’ meaning every word in the title has its first letter capitalized and all remaining letters are lowercase. Though this is possible using only standard AppleScript, the project quickly becomes complicated and ends up running slower than it needs to.

If you are interested in solving this problem just using AppleScript, you can get much of the code you need from my previous post, Applescript – Converting Uppercase & Lowercase (AppleScrunix Style).

Or you can do it using AppleScrunix and just 2 lines of code. I have messed up the title ahead of time to make it more interesting… thIs is thE stORY of a GIRL becomes This Is The Story Of A Girl.

Begin Script…



set myTitle to "thIs is thE stORY of a GIRL"
do shell script "python -c \"print " & quoted form of (myTitle) & ".title()\""

…End Script

Result: “This Is The Story Of A Girl”

AppleScript / AppleScrunix Examples – using the do shell script command in AppleScript.

Applescript – Converting Uppercase & Lowercase (AppleScrunix Style)

Russ Leseberg — Fri, 27 May 2011 00:23:44 +0000

As there are no built-in routines for changing the case of characters in AppleScript, the coder is required to add their own handlers. The following script (See credits below) shows one way to use AppleScript to change the names of files in a folder from lowercase to uppercase & vise-versa.

Begin Script…



tell   application  "Finder"  to   set   the   source_folder   to   choose folder 

 


 
tell   me   to   activate 

 


 
display dialog  "Change case to:"  buttons  {"Cancel", "UPPER", "lower"}

 
set   the   button_pressed   to   the   button returned   of   the   result 

 
tell   application  "Finder"

 
	 repeat   with   this_item   in   entire contents   of   source_folder 

 
		 set   the   current_name   to   the   name   of   this_item   as   text 

 
		 if   the   button_pressed   is  "lower"  then 

 
			 set   the   name   of   this_item   to   my   change_case ( the   current_name , "lower")

 
		 else 

 
			 set   the   name   of   this_item   to   my   change_case ( the   current_name , "upper")

 
		 end   if 

 
	 end   repeat 

 
end   tell 

 
display dialog  "Process complete"

 


 
-- AppleScript 'change_case' handler
on   change_case ( this_text ,  this_case )

 
	 if   this_case   is  "lower"  then 

 
		 set   the   comparison_string   to  "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ"

 
		 set   the   source_string   to  "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz"

 
	 else 

 
		 set   the   comparison_string   to  "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz"

 
		 set   the   source_string   to  "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ"

 
	 end   if 

 
	 set   the   new_text   to  ""

 
	 repeat   with   thisChar   in   this_text 

 
		 set   x   to   the   offset   of   thisChar   in   the   comparison_string 

 
		 if   x   is   not  0  then 

 
			 set   the   new_text   to  ( the   new_text  &  character   x   of   the   source_string )  as   string 

 
		 else 

 
			 set   the   new_text   to  ( the   new_text  &  thisChar )  as   string 

 
		 end   if 

 
	 end   repeat 

 
	 return   the   new_text 

 
end   change_case

…End Script

The following handler ‘change_case’ was rewritten using AppleScrunix. Not only is there less code, but the script runs faster. Replace the AppleScript version of the handler in the above script with the unix based handler below.

Begin Handler…



-- AppleScrunix 'change_case' handler
on   change_case ( this_text ,  this_case )

 
	 if   this_case   is  "lower"  then 

 
		 set   the   new_text   to   do shell script  "echo " &  quoted form   of  ( this_text ) & " | tr A-Z a-z"

 
	 else 

 
		 set   the   new_text   to   do shell script  "echo " &  quoted form   of  ( this_text ) & " | tr a-z A-Z"

 
	 end   if 

 
	 return   the   new_text 

 
end   change_case

…End Handler

The above AppleScrunix example uses shell command ‘tr’ to translate uppercase to lowercase, etc. Refer to the tr Mac OS X Man (Manual) Page for other uses.

Credits: I picked up the initial example script almost verbatim from Apple Support Communities. It was posted by a user I only know as V.K., on April 16, 2009 @ 10:13 am. ~Thanks VK!

AppleScript / AppleScrunix Examples – using the do shell script command in AppleScript.

Sorting with AppleScript (AppleScrunix Style)

Russ Leseberg — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 20:50:03 +0000

As there is no built-in sort function in AppleScript you have to create your own. A common way of sorting lists is to use the repeat function… cycling through the list comparing items as you progress. One of the more efficient approaches is a bubble sort. You can find an excellent example in Lesson 18, “Working with Lists and Records” in Sal Saghoian’s book, AppleScript 1-2-3.

This AppleScript bubble sort was taken in part from Sal’s book:


set fruit to {"pears", "bananas", "apples", "grapes", "watermelon", "pineapple"}
set last_swap_position to length of fruit
repeat while last_swap_position > 0
 set comparisons_needed to last_swap_position - 1
 set last_swap_position to 0
 repeat with i from 1 to comparisons_needed
 if item i of fruit > item (i + 1) of fruit then
 set swap_item to item i of fruit
 set item i of fruit to item (i + 1) of fruit
 set item (i + 1) of fruit to swap_item
 set last_swap_position to i
 end if
 end repeat
end repeat
return fruit
 = {"apples", "bananas", "grapes", "pears", "pineapple", "watermelon"}

Using AppleScrunix you can sort the same list using a shell script sort command:


set fruit to {"pears", "bananas", "apples", "grapes", "watermelon", "pineapple"}
set text item delimiters to {ASCII character 10}
set fruit to fruit as string
set fruit to paragraphs of (do shell script "echo " & quoted form of (fruit) & " | sort -f")
set text item delimiters to ""
return fruit
 = {"apples", "bananas", "grapes", "pears", "pineapple", "watermelon"}

Though it doesn’t save much coding, it executes faster, especially as the lists get longer. Using sort, via shell, also allows for files/lists to be sorted without having to open them. I will cover that in a future post.

We will continue to delve deeper into AppleScript & AppleScrunix in future posts.