Finder getting the first 10 files with the .txt extension

Scripting Forums AppleScript | Mac OS X
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#1

Hi all,

Newbie applescripter here and I really need help :slight_smile: I’ve been ‘coding by example’ searching through google for different Applescript samples, but this one is eluding me.

I’m trying to get the finder to return say 5 .txt files from a folder. Here’s my attempted code :

	tell application "Finder"
		set thePath to folder MyFolder
		set txtFileList to files 1 thru 5 in thePath whose name ends with ".txt"
	end tell
	return txtFileList

(MyFolder is a folder name passed into this function)
I am able to get every file with .txt extension - i.e. this works fine:

	set txtFileList to every file in thePath whose name ends with ".txt"

But for some reason i cant get it to limit the results to a fixed number of files. (There are more than 5 files in the folder)

I’m using this snippet to process text files one at a time but the script takes too long when processing all files, so i need to limit the processing down to manageable chunks.

Can anyone pleeease help?

Thanks

Drav

#2

Hi Drav,

welcome to MacScripter.
You’re probably talking about OS X, so please post in the OS X forum

Try this, I added some error handling, if there are less than 5 text files in the folder


tell application "Finder"
	set thePath to folder MyFolder
	set theFiles to files of thePath whose name ends with ".txt"
	if (count theFiles) < 5 then
		copy theFiles to txtFileList
	else
		set txtFileList to items 1 thru 5 of theFiles
	end if
end tell
return txtFileList