Apple

I guess silly is in the mind of the observer.

Hey Mitchell,

Not at all.

[Example not shown] Reads more logically to me than a long string.

I too find long AppleScript lists and records abysmally difficult to read and maintain.

property largeRecord2 : { ¬
ThisIsTheFirstKey: "one", ¬

…

}

turns into

property largeRecord : ¬

…

¬
{ThisIsTheFirstKey:"one", ThisIsTheSecondKey:"two", ThisIsTheThirdKey:"three", ThisIsTheFourthKey:"four", ThisIsTheFifthKey:"five", ThisIsTheSixthKey:¬
"six"} ¬

Yes, this is a nasty mess that can't be worked around conventionally. It's seriously frustrating that the AppleScript compiler won't allow the user to apply formatting as (s)he sees fit, but that's the way it is.

Regular AppleScript records are not particularly useful due to their glaring limitations, and I've assiduously avoided using them as much as possible for decades.

I tend to use nicely formatted text tables and do lookups with the Satimage.osax (very, very fast).

But - AppleScriptObjC changes the ballgame.

Shane no doubt will improve upon this at least a bit.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

# Auth: Christopher Stone

# dCre: 2017/02/24 21:05

# dMod: 2017/02/25 00:24

# Appl: AppleScriptObjC

# Task: Converting a text table to a NSDictionary for lookups.

# Libs: None

# Osax: None

# Tags: @Applescript, @Script, @ASObjC, @Converting, @Text, @Table, @NSDictionary, @Lookups

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

use framework "Foundation"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

property nsDict : missing value -- stub for dictionary

property recordTable : "

CDG Charles Degaulle – Paris – France

DFW Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport – USA

HND Haneda - Tokyo – Japan

IAD Dulles - Washington DC – USA

LHR Heathrow – London – United Kingdom

OKC Will Rogers World Airport - Oklahoma City - USA

ORD O'Hare International Airport – Chicago – USA

PER Perth – Western Australia – Australia

SYD Sydney – New South Wales – Australia

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

if nsDict = missing value then

# Remove leading and trailing vertical whitespace:

set recordTable to (its cngStr:"\\A\\s+|\\s+\\Z" intoString:"" inString:recordTable)

set recNameList to paragraphs of (its cngStr:"(?m)\\t.+$" intoString:"" inString:recordTable)

set recValueList to paragraphs of (its cngStr:"(?m)^.+\\t" intoString:"" inString:recordTable)

set nsDict to current application's NSDictionary's dictionaryWithObjects:recValueList forKeys:recNameList

end if

set lookupValue to "OKC"

return lookupInDictionary(lookupValue)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--» HANDLERS

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

on cngStr:findString intoString:replaceString inString:dataString

set anNSString to current application's NSString's stringWithString:dataString

set dataString to (anNSString's stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:findString withString:replaceString ¬

options:(current application's NSRegularExpressionSearch) range:{0, length of dataString}) as text

end cngStr:intoString:inString:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

on lookupInDictionary(recName)

set returnResult to nsDict's objectForKey:recName

if returnResult = missing value then

return false

else

return returnResult as text

end if

end lookupInDictionary

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My typical methodology would look similar to this (with the handler hidden in a library):

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

# Requires the Satimage.osax to be installed!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

property recordTable : "

CDG Charles Degaulle – Paris – France

DFW Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport – USA

HND Haneda - Tokyo – Japan

IAD Dulles - Washington DC – USA

LHR Heathrow – London – United Kingdom

OKC Will Rogers World Airport - Oklahoma City - USA

ORD O'Hare International Airport – Chicago – USA

PER Perth – Western Australia – Australia

SYD Sydney – New South Wales – Australia

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

set lookupValue to "OKC"

if fndUsing((lookupValue & "\\t+(.+)$"), "\\1", recordTable, false, true) of me ≠ false then

return result

else

error "Lookup value not found!"

end if

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--» HANDLERS

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

on fndUsing(_find, _capture, _data, _all, strRslt)

try

set findResult to find text _find in _data using _capture all occurrences _all ¬

string result strRslt with regexp without case sensitive

on error

false

end try

end fndUsing

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Take Care,

Chris

References:
	>multi-line records? (From: Mitchell L Model <email@hidden>)