Banging my head on the wall: why can't I get Every File Of???

Scripting Forums AppleScript | Mac OS X
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#1

Grrr…this should be so simple. I googled and searched everywhere, and I seem to have it coded just fine, but it won’t work!!

directory: ~/Desktop/gcal
contents: .xml files

script:

tell application "Finder" to set myFolder to "Xamego:Users:mlafleur:Desktop:gcal" as string

set theFiles to every file of myFolder whose name extension is "xml"

Error: Can’t get every file of “Xamego:Users:mlafleur:Desktop:gcal”

I tried using slashes in the path, I tried using “as alias” and as nothing, I tried parenthesis. I don’t understand what the problem is. Why the hell is this so cryptic?

#2

Hi,

two mistakes:
You try to get files of a string, not a folder, and you should target the Finder to do this


set myFolder to ((path to desktop as text) & "gcal")
tell application "Finder" to set theFiles to every file of folder myFolder whose name extension is "xml"
#3

Two things going on here.

First ‘files of’ and its various forms of functions of the Finder so it must be enclosed inside a tell block.

Second ‘of myfolder’ doesn’t work because myfolder is a string. So instead you need to specify that its a folder.

tell application "Finder"
	set myFolder to "Xamego:Users:mlafleur:Desktop:gcal" as string
	set theFiles to every file of folder myFolder whose name extension is "xml"
end tell
#4

Ya got me this time Stefan :stuck_out_tongue:

Brazuca: or you could have declared myfolder as an alias rather than string and then the ‘folder’ designation wouldn’t have been needed.

tell application "Finder"
	set myFolder to "Xamego:Users:mlafleur:Desktop:gcal" as alias
	set theFiles to every file of myFolder whose name extension is "xml"
end tell
#5

Thanks guys. I’m such a noob. I had tried the alias thing, but outside the Finder’s tell block. Silly me.

Now, on to find a way to convert all these xml files to csv or a format that Google Calendar understands (XSLT Tools doesn’t seem to work in Leopard, so I have to read about creating structured documents)…Maybe it is easier to convince the source to make an RSS feed after all…

edit: Actually, this solved a problem but showed me another. I’m guessing this has to do with POSIX paths.

set myFolder to ((path to desktop as text) & "gcal")
tell application "Finder" to set theFiles to every file of folder myFolder whose name extension is "xml"
repeat with i from 1 to the count of theFiles
	
	set theOld to item i of theFiles
	set thisPath to (path of theOld)
	set theCommand to "sed -i -e 's/\"/\\\"/g' " & thisPath
	
	#sed -i -e 's/\"/\\\"/g' /Users/mlafleur/Desktop/gcal/P31733.xml  <<this is the actual command that works in terminal. I need "/" in the path, not ":"
	
	do shell script theCommand

	#parse XML alias (myFolder & theOld)
end repeat

Gets an error “Can’t get path of document file P31625.xml…”. The variable “thisPath” has to not include the HDD name and use “/”. Is this for POSIX?