Automatic generation of alias files with folder actions

Hi,

I’m stuck with following problem: I’m trying to build a folder action that parses a XML file and makes a alias to that file using an extracted XML value.

It works as a script with a hard coded reference to a specific XML file. So, this works:

-- the XML file
set _theXMLFile to "/Users/kaidoh/Library/Caches/Metadata/com.culturedcode.things/Things/0C0197FC-8ED1-42BE-8BAB-827832576645.thingsitem"
tell application "System Events"
	-- this extracts an attribute from the XML file I want to use as name for the alias
	tell XML element 1 of XML element 1 of contents of XML file _theXMLFile
		set _theTitle to (value of XML attribute "title")
	end tell
	
	set _theXMLFile to _theXMLFile as POSIX file
	tell application "Finder"
		set _theAlias to make new alias file at POSIX file "/Users/kaidoh/Library/Application Support/LaunchBar/ThingsIndex" to _theXMLFile
		set the name of _theAlias to _theTitle
	end tell
end tell

The problem comes in when I try to turn this code into a folder action. I don’t know, why this fails:

-- analog to the hard coded example above
-- the folder action is meant to be attached to the folder
-- "/Users/kaidoh/Library/Caches/Metadata/com.culturedcode.things/Things"
on adding folder items to _thisFolder after receiving _theseItems
	repeat with i from 1 to number of items in _theseItems
		set _thisItem to item i of _theseItems
		tell application "System Events"
			tell XML element 1 of XML element 1 of contents of XML file _thisItem
				set _theTitle to (value of XML attribute "title")
			end tell
			set _theXMLFile to _thisItem as POSIX file
			tell application "Finder"
				set _theAlias to make new alias file at POSIX file "/Users/kaidoh/Library/Application Support/LaunchBar/ThingsIndex" to _theXMLFile
				set the name of _theAlias to _theTitle
			end tell
		end tell
	end repeat
end adding folder items to

My guess is that I would need to hand over _thisItem to the XML file function in a different way - but can’t get my head (and googleing skills) around it.
Any pointers to a solution would be welcome.

I didn’t try your code but this line seems bad because “_thisItem” is already a posix file. You only use “posix file” to make a posix path into an applescript-style path. Since it’s already an applescript-style path it would error.

set _theXMLFile to _thisItem as POSIX file