getting varible name not value

Question

Level 1

5 points

getting varible name not value

i want to set a variable to the name of another variable.

for example


set mainVar to "Some Value Here"
--now set another variable to the name of the previous.
set var2 to mainVar & " Has been set"

so that var2 would output "mainVar has been set"

Thanks in advance,
C

Mac MINI, Mac OS X (10.5.6)

Posted on Nov 18, 2009 11:34 AM

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Answer 1

Camelot

Level 9

59,313 points

Nov 18, 2009 11:57 AM in response to Pendal

Short answer: you don't. AppleScript doesn't give easy access to this kind of data.

Long answer: there are some workarounds that can get pretty complex and add significant overhead to your script. What is it you're actually trying to do/achieve? There may be a different way of doing it.

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Answer 2

Pierre L.

Level 5

4,641 points

Nov 18, 2009 12:03 PM in response to Pendal

You could define mainVar as a record:

set mainVar to {value:100, name:"mainVar"}
set var2 to name of mainVar & " has been set"
value of mainVar --> 100
var2 --> "mainVar has been set"

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Answer 3

Pendal Author

Level 1

5 points

Nov 18, 2009 12:03 PM in response to Camelot

well i am putting this applescript behind an interface from IB.

i have some text views in the interface that have the same name as the variable, so i was just trying to save myself some if then coding.. which I will be doing right now.

thanks though

-C

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Answer 4

red_menace

Level 6

17,072 points

Nov 18, 2009 7:24 PM in response to Pendal

If the name of the text views have bindings to the user defaults, maybe you could get them from there?

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