check folder size script hanging

Scripting Forums AppleScript | Mac OS X
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#1

Hi all,

About a week ago, I posted for some help with a “check folder size” portion of one of my scripts. Here’s what I ultimately came up with:

tell application "Finder"
		if folderStatus is equal to true then
			set folderSize to size of folder FolderToBeBackedUp
			repeat until folderSize is not missing value
				delay 0.5
			end repeat
			set legibleSize to ((folderSize / (1024 ^ 3) + 0.5) as integer)
			set folderPath to POSIX path of (FolderToBeBackedUp as alias)
			if legibleSize > 8 then
				set errormsg to {"The backup did not run because the size of the folder selected for backup, \"" & FolderToBeBackedUp & "\", is " & legibleSize & " GB and too large for a typical writable DVD." & return} as text
				my WriteLog(errormsg)
				set DoBackup to false
				set BackupSuccess to false
			end if
		end if
	end tell

The problem is that this function cause Applescript to hang, and I’m not sure why. Sometimes if I kill the script run and run it a second time right afterwards, it succeeds. But I don’t see any bug that would cause the hang. Comments would be appreciated! I do know that it’s not the call to WriteLog that’s causing the hang.

Thanks all!

#2

Unfortunately your snippet doesn’t include definitions of several of the variables it contains. Hard to help with no idea of what the data might be.

#3

Hi,

the problem is, you check once the size of the folder, but not in the repeat loop, so it hangs.
Try this

tell application "Finder"
	if folderStatus then -- this is the same as "if folderStatus is equal to true"
		repeat until (size of folder FolderToBeBackedUp) is not missing value
			delay 0.5
		end repeat
		set legibleSize to (((size of folder FolderToBeBackedUp) / (1024 ^ 3) + 0.5) as integer)
		set folderPath to POSIX path of (FolderToBeBackedUp as alias)
		if legibleSize > 8 then
			set errormsg to {"The backup did not run because the size of the folder selected for backup, \"" & FolderToBeBackedUp & "\", is " & legibleSize & " GB and too large for a typical writable DVD." & return} as text
			my WriteLog(errormsg)
			set DoBackup to false
			set BackupSuccess to false
		end if
	end if
end tell
#4

Thank you, Stefan! Your way works a treat. I’m still not entirely clear on why my method doesn’t work, as I would think that the line “set folderSize to size of folder FolderToBeBackedUp” could be issued once and then a subsequent command could wait for the set command to be “completed”, but I guess it doesn’t work that way.

#5

the variable folderSize is set to the value of the size at the moment,
but not as a reference, which changes dynamically. This works also


...
set folderSize to size of folder FolderToBeBackedUp
repeat until folderSize is not missing value
	set folderSize to size of folder FolderToBeBackedUp
	delay 0.5
end repeat
...