How do I capture terminal ping results using apple script

If you intend to do the automator stuff with AppleScript your script would contain something like this,

set x to do shell script "path-to-your-shell-script"

where x is the variable to receive the output (string) and path-to-your-shell-script is what it says (which can contain arguments).

You then write your shell script to do the ping and output (printf, echo, whatever) a yes/no, true/false, 1/0, or whatever you want to test for in the AppleScript.

Just remember the x is a string type, not numeric, so you need to convert appropriately if you use it in some other context than a string.

FWIW, here's a little bash shell line to test for the presence of a specific IP:

printf "%d" $((`ping -o IP | fgrep -c "IP"` != 0))

where IP is the desired IP number. This will output a 1 or a 0. Of course it's overkill since you could just test for non-zero and simply do just the ping without the comparision.

printf "%d" `ping -o IP | fgrep -c "IP"`

or even just,

echo -n `ping -o IP | fgrep -c "IP"`

[I would have added this to my original reply but I can't seem to edit it to update it -- guess someone reading it causes that.]

[I would have added this to my original reply but I can't seem to edit it to update it -- guess someone reading it causes that.]

You can only edit a post for about 15 minutes after posting.