On Nov 1, 2017, at 23:36, Michael Grant <mgrant@...> wrote:

What are you using in place of Finder?

tell application "Finder" to set originals_folder to (folder "originaux" of project_folder)

By the way, I think I found an equivalent to:

tell application "Finder" to set originals_folder to (folder "originaux" of project_folder)

It took me a lot of time too, it is not as short or seemingly elegant as the above, but it works:

tell application "System Events" to set originals_folder to item 1 of (items of project_folder whose name is "originaux")

The question being, it is really worth the trouble ?

By the way, I think I found an equivalent to:

tell application "Finder" to set originals_folder to (folder "originaux" of project_folder)

It took me a lot of time too, it is not as short or seemingly elegant as the above, but it works:

tell application "System Events" to set originals_folder to item 1 of (items of project_folder whose name is "originaux")

The question being, is it really worth the trouble? 

On Nov 2, 2017, at 9:40, Shane Stanley <sstanley@...> wrote:

On 2 Nov 2017, at 10:29 am, Christopher Stone <listmeister@...> wrote:

The thing to do is to use the best tool for the job

Defining best can be the issue, though. I suspect what most scripters really want is a single tool that may not be the fastest at everything, but is reliable, straight-forward to use, and fast enough.

AppleScriptObjC offers the file manager, which is reliable and very fast -- but the learning curve is obviously substantial.

set default_location_url to current application's |NSURL|'s fileURLWithPath:default_location

It looks like you are calling a handler (fileURLWithPath) that belongs to whatever |NSURL| is (are the || required ?) and that "|NSURL|" belongs to "current application", with the parameter default_location.

Checking the Foundation documentation, I find that fileURLWithPath is a "Type Method" for the "NSURL" class. Is it the same "|NSURL|" as above?

So I guess I can use other "Type Methods" instead of fileURLWithPath to produce different results, right? As long as the parameter type corresponds to what the method requests (here, fileURLWithPath requests a "path" and I'm guessing the only valid path for a NSURL parameter is a POSIX path).

Why call "current application" here ? What is its role here ?

set originals_folder_url to default_location_url's URLByAppendingPathComponent:"originaux"

set new_folder_url to default_location_url's URLByAppendingPathComponent:"whatever"

Once you've set default_location_url to the above thing that I'm not sure I understand

, it looks like it has the ability to be called through handlers, like "URLByAppendingPathComponent", which is an "Instance Method" in the Foundation documentation.

Does that mean that the "set default_location_url to" command created an instance of NSURL and that I can use relevant instance methods on it?

The Foundation documentation also mentions "URLByAppendingPathComponent:isDirectory:" but even though we're creating a directory, why don't you use it?

I know I should not have thrown away my Objective-C book. I can't find a page that explains the difference between Instance Method, Type Method (and there is seemingly also a Class Method thing)...

-- make new folder

set fileManager to current application's NSFileManager's defaultManager()

Ok, now I guessed that "NSFileManager" was a class, and I was right... Good :-) But why not use the "|NSFileManager|" syntax that you used above?

Now, "defaultManager()" looks like it won't take a parameter, but the Foundation documentation says that defaultManager is a "Type Property", so I'm not sure what to do with that information and how to interpret what the code does.

But in the end, we get an instance of the class NSFileManager's in fileManager, correct?

So we can use the instance method "createDirectoryAtURL" on it. The Foundation documentation shows something like:

createDirectoryAtURL:withIntermediateDirectories:attributes:error:

And the way you write it shows how to make sense of that notation:

set {theResult, theError} to fileManager's createDirectoryAtURL:new_folder_url withIntermediateDirectories:true attributes:(missing value) |error|:(reference)

if theResult as boolean is false then error theError's localizedDescription() as text

Here again, you use a " | ... | " notation, for "|error|" this time. Why?

Checking localizedDescription, I see that it is an Instance Property, so I guess it means it the property of an instance of the class NSError,

that is automatically returned by createDirectoryAtURL and set to theError.

I'm not sure what to do with (missing value) and (reference) though. Is (missing value) just a way to say that you don't set that parameter?

The documentation for (reference) as a value for |error| is much less clear. I mean, not clear at all.

createDirectoryAtURL returns YES or NO depending on whether the directory was created or not, so I guess YES and NO are automatically considered as boolean?

I was not aware of the Applescript error statement (except in "on error"), so here theError's localizedDescription() returns something that needs to be changed to text so that error can display it.

-- get contents of originaux 

set contents_urls to fileManager's contentsOfDirectoryAtURL:originals_folder_url includingPropertiesForKeys:{} options:(current application's NSDirectoryEnumerationSkipsHiddenFiles) |error|:(missing value)

contentsOfDirectoryAtURL requires a number of parameters and now we use "{}" to say something equivalent, I guess to "(missing value)"?

Also, the documentation for the options is not super clear. Not sure what a "shallow enumeration" is...

And I guess we are not interested in  the error message here...

-- move the files

repeat with one_url in contents_urls

set destination_url to (new_folder_url's URLByAppendingPathComponent:(one_url's lastPathComponent()))

(fileManager's moveItemAtURL:one_url toURL:destination_url |error|:(missing value))

end repeat

It's slowly beginning to make sense... Plus we have a super sunny afternoon here, so I guess I'm blessed...

Ok, here we use URLByAppendingPathComponent again, this time by adding not an arbitrary string like we did when we created new_folder_url's but by adding the lastPathComponent() of the URL of one of the contents of the "originaux" folder.

lastPathComponent is an Instance Property. It looks like the syntax for all the properties we've had so far was property() and not property.

Now we have a (fileManager's moveItemAtURL:one_url...), why is it between parens and not on it's own like a normal statement?

Also, I do have your book on ASOC, so if answers are to be found there (sorry I was focusing on the Foundation doc here), don't hesitate to give a pointer instead.

On Nov 2, 2017, at 14:29, Shane Stanley <sstanley@...> wrote:

On 2 Nov 2017, at 3:50 pm, Jean-Christophe Helary <jean.christophe.helary@...> wrote:

set default_location_url to current application's |NSURL|'s fileURLWithPath:default_location

It looks like you are calling a handler (fileURLWithPath) that belongs to whatever |NSURL| is (are the || required ?) and that "|NSURL|" belongs to "current application", with the parameter default_location.

Checking the Foundation documentation, I find that fileURLWithPath is a "Type Method" for the "NSURL" class. Is it the same "|NSURL|" as above?

The pipes around NSURL are used because there's a terminology clash with a fairly common scripting addition that unfortunately uses the Cocoa class name. Preceding it by "current application's " is just the way to refer to a Cocoa class. The term "type method" is a relatively new Swiftian thing -- these were traditionally called "class methods", because the target of them is the class itself (as opposed to "instance methods", which are targeted at instances of the class).

Unless I'm missing the point here — entirely possible! — for whatever it's worth you actually don't need Finder *or* System Events for this particular task. The following does nicely, without any tell block:

set hfPath to POSIX path of (path to home folder)

On 23 Nov 2017, at 22:15, Christopher Stone <listmeister@...> wrote:

AppleScriptObjC too has a method for expanding a tilde-path that's not especially arcane:

I find this way slightly easier to remember (and type):