Getting a file object from a file path

Scripting Forums AppleScript | Mac OS X
#1

I can’t believe how hard this is - I know four other languages and I’m stuck on a freaking filehandle.

My script eventually comes up with a filepath, the kind with the colons in it.

I want to test it either for its file extension or file type.

				
set theAttachment to item theAttachmentIndex of theAttachments
				set theAttachmentFileName to name of theAttachment
				set attFile to "tmp:" & theAttachmentFileName
				save theAttachment in attFile
				--set aFile to attFile as file
				
				--set theFile to attFile as file specification

the file specification one works, but it doesn’t give me what I want. The file one doesn’t work. And getting info from either hasn’t been fruitful.

What I eventually want to do is test to see if the extension is aiff, and if it is, call afconvert to convert the file to a CAF file. But first I need to know how to get a file object from a file path. Can anyone help?

Thanks!

#2

Hi,

try this


.
set theAttachment to item theAttachmentIndex of theAttachments
set theAttachmentFileName to name of theAttachment
set attFile to "tmp:" & theAttachmentFileName
save theAttachment in attFile

set aFile to attFile as alias
set Ex to file extension of (info for aFile)
if Ex is "aiff" then
	-- do something
end if
#3

Nope, no luck. It seems to stop processing at:

set aFile to attFile as alias

#4

the context is missing.
Are you talking about Mail.app?
With your syntax “tmp” must be the name of a volume

#5

Sorry about that, yes, this is an applescript that is called from Mail.app to, among other things, extract attachments from a mail message. I have an iPhone app that mails a voice recording to me, and then I want this rule to extract the voice recording and do something else with it.

However, I experimented with the file path and when prepending a volume it wouldn’t save. Since it’s saving in /tmp I thought that would be sufficient.

At any rate, when I reconstruct the path to prepend a Volume, it still isn’t working:



		set theAttachments to mail attachments of the theMessage
		set theAttachmentCount to count of theAttachments

			repeat with theAttachmentIndex from 1 to theAttachmentCount
				set theAttachment to item theAttachmentIndex of theAttachments
				set theAttachmentFileName to name of theAttachment

                                set attFile to "tmp:" & theAttachmentFileName
				save theAttachment in attFile
				
				set filePath to "Juggernaut:tmp:" & theAttachmentFileName
				set aFile to filePath as alias
				set Ex to file extension of (info for aFile)
#6

It cannot work, because you’re going to save the attachment to a non existing path


.
	set theAttachments to mail attachments of the theMessage
	set theAttachmentCount to count of theAttachments
	
	repeat with theAttachmentIndex from 1 to theAttachmentCount
		set theAttachment to item theAttachmentIndex of theAttachments
		set theAttachmentFileName to name of theAttachment
		
		set filePath to "Juggernaut:tmp:" & theAttachmentFileName
		save theAttachment in filePath
		
		set aFile to filePath as alias
		set Ex to name extension of (info for aFile)
	.

sorry, it’s name extension not file extension

#7

Oh, the file has been saving successfully just fine. That part of the code has been working. It fails here:

   set aFile to filePath as alias

I’ll play with it some more after some sleep. Thanks for your help so far!

#8

I’ve just tested the script.
If the attachment has really been saved to the destination location, the alias coercion works

#9

Hello,

I don’t know if this will help you, but once you have a folder with your attachments in it you can use something like

set docsToConvert to every file of folder MyFolderOfAttachments whose name ends with ".aiff"

→ That should generate a list of all the .aiff files in that folder.

You can then step through this list and process the files.

Regards,

  • Zoar