Re: Do shell script and special characters
Re: Do shell script and special characters
- Subject: Re: Do shell script and special characters
- From: Helmut Fuchs <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2002 22:32:53 +0200
At 12:02 Uhr -0700 21.10.2002, Chris Espinosa wrote:
Doing a 'cat' of a file that doesn't contain UTF-8 is just like
doing a 'cat' of a binary file; you get garbage -- in most cases,
illegal UTF-8.
That's exactly the problem. 'cat' simply does binary output. The
shell _interprets_ its output as UTF-8. And there was garbage...
There's no obvious way to read anything into AppleScript without
translation. Why does AppleScript _force_ data to take make a detour
through the shell in that limiting way? At times AppleScript is far
too patronizing!
I've always found that "do shell script" is kind of awkward. You
don't have control of what really makes up the power of the shell -
STDIN, STDOUT and STDERR are hidden behind layers of (possibly)
unwanted translations.
I really would like to be able to open real pipes from AppleScript
and handle input and output to other scripts via file I/O.
UNIX is all about control. AppleScript's automatic coercions are for
simplicity. That's a culture clash, and I think that anybody who is
able to cough up shell scripts should be trusted to do his/her
coercions on his/her own! Or at least be ALLOWED to do them byself.
And I wish, for that among other reasons, that a binary block data
type should finally be invented for AppleScript, which should allow
for conversions from mere bytes into various other data formats (e.g.
string encodings) and back. Then AppleScript could finally become a
hub, where software of different cultural backgrounds neatly finds
together.
Regards,
Helmut
P.S. Thanks to Chris Espinosa (and other team members) for taking
part in these discussions. It's a relief to hear that at least the
AppleScript team seems to be interested in what users think.
--
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