Can I embed a full shell script inside an applescript?

Making it two seprate files will be the easiest way.

Otherwise you're going to have to escape all special characters and if the shell script is more then a few lines it will be a pain and prone to errors.

The shell script permissions should stay the same, so it would be executable on another system. If it needs to run with elevated access, it would probably be easier to use an AppleScript to get authentication.

Another option would be to create a script application and include the shell script file in the bundle's Resources folder. From there, the path to the shell script can be fetched by using Standard Additions' path to resource command, where it can be used in AppleScript's do shell script command. Note that the shell script will just have a default shell, so you can't rely on any environment variables such as $PATH, and will therefore need to use its full path.

an example of writing a simple shell script into an applescript:

set ss to "cd ~/Downloads

echo 'This is a file list for the \"Downloads\" folder'

echo

ls -al"

set dlf to do shell scriptss

display alertdlfgiving up after 10

The characters you'll need to escape are double-quotes and backslashes: use \" for literal doublequotes and \\ for literal backslashes. Everything else should be fine, though you'll make your life simpler by using single-quotes where you can.

as red_menace pointed out, this may run without any of the PATH or environment variables you expect to see in a terminal session. that's because do shell script doesn't run to bash_profile files the way Terminal.app does.

While it is possible to do this in the Applescript if the shell script gets at all complicated escaping characters and debugging will be much harder then it needs to be.

For example taking twtwtw's example and just adding one Applescript variable gives:

set dir to POSIX path of (choose folder)

set ss to "cd " & dir & "

echo 'This is a file list for the \"" & dir & "\" folder'

echo

ls -l"

set dlf to do shell scriptss

display alertdlfgiving up after 10

Twtwtw's suggestion of creating an Applescript application bundle is, I believe, the best way to go. You can keep the shell script and Applescript separate making maintenance and debugging much simpler and your friend just gets one 'file' to install and run.

regards

You would create a script application something like:

settheCommandtoPOSIX pathof (path to resource"myShellScript")

settheResultto (do shell scripttheCommand)

theResult--> standard output from the shell script, if any

Then place myShellScript (or whatever the name of your executable file is) in the Contents/Resources folder of the application bundle (right click on an application and "Show Package Contents" to open the bundle). The do shell script command always calls bash - see Technical Note TN2065 for more information.

I just pasted code from the script editor - it's been a while since I've used the default settings, so my settings use blue for language keywords, purple for parameter names, green for variable names, and the pink color for scripting addition commands.

You can check AppleScript Editor > Preferences > Formatting for the particular color meanings in your editor.

Saw this thread,which helped me.

But, I also had similar problem like aarons.

I followed red_menace suggestion and put the script directly in the Resources folder and not in the Scripts folder.

path to resource gave the resource not found error if the script was in Scripts folder.

Thanks.

The path to resource command has an optional in directory parameter that can be used to get resources in subdirectories such as the Scripts folder - see the StandardAdditions scripting dictionary.