do a perl command from applescript

Question

do a perl command from applescript

I'd like to use Perl from AppleScript for text replacements. The snippet below works, however when the var haystackString starts to include apostrophes, this fails. I tried using AppleScript's "quoted form of" on haystackString however it fails I think because the shell command I'm using needs single quotes to enclose the commands being executed by Perl. Any tips? Thanks, Ted

set haystackString to "this this"

set findString to "this"

set replaceString to "that"

setshellscriptto ("perl -e '$s=\"" & haystackString & "\";$toFind=\"" & findString & "\";$replaceWith =\"" & replaceString & "\";$s =~ s/$toFind/$replaceWith/g;print $s;'") asstring

set testString to do shell scriptshellscript

Posted on Sep 30, 2014 3:31 PM

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Answer 1

Sep 30, 2014 5:45 PM in response to Ted Fitzpatrick

Hi,

Ted Fitzpatrick wrote:

however it fails I think because the shell command I'm using needs single quotes to enclose the commands being executed by Perl. Any tips? Thanks, Ted

Yes, that's right.

Solution, use the arguments:

set haystackString to "can't  can't"
set findString to "can't"
set replaceString to "that's all"

set args to (quoted form of haystackString) & " " & (quoted form of findString) & " " & quoted form of replaceString
set testString to do shell script "perl -e '$s=\"$ARGV[0]\";$s =~ s/$ARGV[1]/$ARGV[2]/g; print \"$s\"' " & args

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Answer 2

etresoft

Level 9

56,668 points

Oct 1, 2014 5:40 AM in response to Ted Fitzpatrick

Why are you wrapping one script in another? Why not just use Perl?

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Answer 3

Oct 1, 2014 8:59 AM in response to etresoft

Hi etresoft,

The text replacements are one part of a larger AppleScript automation routine. Perl's text replace is much faster and more powerful than base AppleScript, so from my AppleScript I'm asking Perl for assistance.

Ted

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Answer 4

Oct 1, 2014 9:06 AM in response to Jacques Rioux

Bonjour Jacques,

Merci for the solution! With my somewhat limited Perl knowledge, in your solution it looks like Perl has a special variable named $ARGV that's made to hold an array of arguments passed from a command line. And, I know that AppleScript's "quoted form of" is specially made for passing strings as command line args. It's nice to see that I can use these two together and not need to worry about manually escaping my string. Awesome!

Now I have a nice speedy and powerful way to do text replacement operations via Perl from my AppleScript.

Thanks,

Ted

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