Apple

On Aug 24, 2005, at 10:23 AM, Daniel Jalkut wrote:

tell application "Finder"
files of entire contents of startup disk whose name contains "Fun" and name extension is "jpg"
end tell

Hi Michelle - I didn't realize that the Finder's built-in matching was as quick and relatively useful as it is. Thanks for that!

Yup. Actually I didn't realize it either until I saw your message and decided to try it.

But the big advantage of being able to search by regular _expression_ is that you don't have to write the script every time. You just have to write the _expression_. I'm not as likely to take the time to write a complete script for a one-off operation like this.

Even though it's a one-liner?

tell application "Finder" to get files of entire contents of startup disk whose name contains "Fun" and name extension is "jpg"

Or, to use it in a result:

tell application "Finder" to set fun_files to ( files of entire contents of startup disk whose name contains "Fun" and name extension is "jpg")

And it can be saved as a file, and called by "load script" if you wish.

Also, regular expressions make it easy to express more complicated queries like "ends in jpg or jpeg and contain a series of three capital letters followed by a numeral." I'm almost positive you can't put that into words that AppleScript can easily understand.

I think you're right about that. The nice thing is that Applescript can use regex when it makes sense to use it.

-- Michelle

Give Peace A Chance.

References:
	>Select Finder items by Regular Expression (From: Daniel Jalkut <email@hidden>)
	>Re: Select Finder items by Regular Expression (From: Michelle Steiner <email@hidden>)
	>Re: Select Finder items by Regular Expression (From: Daniel Jalkut <email@hidden>)