Re: how to coerce a built-up path?
Re: how to coerce a built-up path?
- Subject: Re: how to coerce a built-up path?
- From: Walter Ian Kaye <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2003 14:59:11 -0800
At 01:52p -0800 12/09/2003, Mark Dawson didst inscribe upon an
electronic papyrus:
How do you coerce a built-up file/path into a file or alias type?
set theFolder to (choose folder with prompt "Pick the folder")
set fromFile to theFolder & "duplicate"
set fromFile to (theFolder as string) & "duplicate"
set toBundle to theFolder & bundleName
--likewise:
set toBundle to (theFolder as string) & bundleName
display dialog theFolder & "--" & fromFile & "--" & toBundle
copyFile (fromFile as file) to (toBundle as file)
When I run the above lines, I get an error, "can't make {alias
"backup2:x:output:", "duplicate"} into a file."
Concatenation takes the datatype on the left as precedence... I mean,
it will coerce the datatype on the right if it can; otherwise it will
form a list.
Since AS cannot turn "duplicate" into an alias and concatenate to
another alias (because that's invalid in more ways than one), you got
yourself a list.
To concatenate a string ("duplicate") onto an alias, you must first
coerce the alias into a string. Thus the code I posted above.
You may wish to use 'as Unicode text' instead of 'as string' to make
the code more OS X savvy.
To turn the resulting string into an alias -- assuming that it points
to a preexisting file (or folder) -- you can do either of the
following:
alias fromFile
fromFile as alias
If the file does not exist, then you would need to use a file spec:
file fromFile
fromFile as file specification
HTH,
-Walter
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