Apple

Dear all,

!Background:
Stata is a statistical package with an editor through which you can
run commands. However TextWrangler is of course a much more advanced
editor and therefore I would like to use that.

!Problem:
I would like to copy a text selection from one program (TextWrangler)
to the next (Stata) (and run it). However if the selection is made somewhere
halfway a line, the whole line of text should be copied (thus from
beginning to end). Therefore I used the command:

                select line (startLine of selection)

, but when I select multiple lines only the first line of the
selection is selected.

!What I have done:
To solve this I would like to make a selection from the first full line
(startLine) to the last full line (endLine) of the selection:
++
tell application "TextWrangler"
        tell text window 1
                set alpha to line (startLine)
                set omega to line (endLine)
                select line (alpha thru omega)
        end tell
        set thecontents to the selection in window 1 as string
        set theOriginalFile to file of document 1
        if thecontents is "" then
                display dialog "Please select some text"
                return
        end if
end tell
++

However, I get the following error message: Can't make startline of text window 1 into 
type startline. I am not a programmer, basically this is the first script I have written 
in anything. I would appreciate any comments, including those on what kind of mistake I 
make.

Cheers,

Richard

!full code:

tell application "TextWrangler"
        tell text window 1
                set alpha to line (startLine)
                set omega to line (endLine)
                #select line (startLine of selection)
                select line (alpha thru omega)
        end tell
        set thecontents to the selection in window 1 as string
        set theOriginalFile to file of document 1
        if thecontents is "" then
                display dialog "Please select some text"
                return
        end if
end tell

set thecontents to thecontents & return & "erase temp.do" & return & "exit"
set tempFile to my ComputeTempFileName(theOriginalFile)
my write_to_file(thecontents, tempFile, false)
tell application "Finder" to set filename to tempFile as alias

tell application "StataSE"
        activate
        open filename
end tell

on ComputeTempFileName(originalFile)
        tell application "Finder"
                set c to container of originalFile
                set t to (c as string) & "temp.do"
        end tell
        return t
end ComputeTempFileName

on write_to_file(this_data, target_file, append_data)
        tell application "Finder"
                try
                        set the target_file to the target_file as text
                        set the open_target_file to ¬
                                open for access file target_file with write permission
                        if append_data is false then ¬
                                set eof of the open_target_file to 0
                        write this_data to the open_target_file starting at eof
                        close access the open_target_file
                        return true
                on error
                        try
                                close access file target_file
                        end try
                        return false
                end try
        end tell
end write_to_file