Hello,
I need to create a new file with a paragraph that uses variables. I've tried this:
do shell script "echo Text for the file > ~/desktop/file.txt"
but I don't know how to use the variables and add more than one text lines.
Thanks in advance.
Using do shell script
set theVar to "World!"
do shell script "echo Hello" & space & theVar & "\\\\nHello World! > ~/desktop/file.txt"
(the newline is \n and needs to be escaped with \\\ in Applescript)
Thanks!!
Hello,
My variable stores a word with quotation marks (I've checked using display dialog) but they are not displayed in the txt file. What am I doing wrong?
Thanks
This is a side effect of how echo (or, more precisely, the shell) parses the data - quotes are used to separate text strings and it would not normally expect to pass them through. You get the same result if you typed a quoted string on the command line.
The standard solution for this is to escape the quotes so that they're passed through the shell, through echo, and out to your file. Since you're escaping characters in AppleScript that are passed to the shell, which also needs to escape them, you need to double-escape, like:
set myQuotedString to "A string with \"quotes\""
do shell script "echo " & myQuotedString & " > ~/Desktop/some.txt" --> fails to include quotes
set myQuotedString to "A string with double-escaped \\\"quotes\\\"" --> note the extra backslashes
do shell script "echo " & myQuotedString & " > ~/Desktop/some2.txt" --> bingo!
That's a PITA, though. An easier solution is to just not use the shell and write it directly via AppleScript:
set myQuotedString to "A string with \"quotes\""
set myfile to open for accessfile ((path todesktopastext) & "some3.txt") with write permission
set eofmyfileto 0
writemyQuotedStringtomyfile
close accessmyfile
It is simple.
1) You need to escape two characters in AppleScript string literal, i.e., backslash (\ U+005C REVERSE SOLIDUS) and quotation mark (" U+0022 QUOTATION MARK).
2) You may use 'quoted form' property of string class in AppleScript to generate single-quoted string to be used in shell.
E.g.,
--set t to "\"Hello,\\nWorld\"" --set t to quote & "Hello," & linefeed & "World" & quote set t to "\"Hello, World\"" do shell script "echo " & t's quoted form & " >~/Desktop/out.txt"
Regards,
H
Thanks!!
And another variation without a storm of backslashes.
set outfile to POSIX path of ((path to desktop) as text) & "foo.txt"
set textstr to "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."
do shell script "printf %s " & quote & textstr & return & "Hello World!" & quote & " > " & outfile
Result:
Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
Hello World!
Create text file using variables
