Plist & Lists

Scripting Forums AppleScript | Mac OS X
#1

This script stores all preferences as “first/second”. Both are in same Sibling. I dont think this is proper way to store prefs. How can i use Array and create New Sibling for every item in list?

set testthis to {"first", "second"}
do shell script ("defaults write Scripts.Test testthis " & testthis)

set testpref to (do shell script "defaults read Scripts.Test testthis")

set tid to AppleScript's text item delimiters
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "/"
set newTxt to text items of testpref
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to tid
set newTxt to newTxt as list

set prefready to item 2 of newTxt
#2

not really sure if this is what you mean?

set tid to AppleScript's text item delimiters
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to " "

set testthis to {"first", "second"}
do shell script ("defaults write Scripts.Test testthis -array " & testthis)

set testpref to (do shell script "defaults read Scripts.Test testthis | sed -e 's/^(//' -e 's/)$//'")

set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ", "
set newTxt to text items of testpref
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to tid
set newTxt to newTxt as list

set prefready to item 2 of newTxt

D.

#3

I wonder what this gibberish does: | sed -e ‘s/^(//’ -e 's/)$//

That helped, but now that i peeked Mail.app plist, i want to save preferences easier way.

My current script have 5 lists and every list has 300 items:

list1 = {“name1”, “name2”…}
list2 = {“email1”, “email2”…}
list3 = {“address1”, “address2”…}
list4 = {“phone1”, “phone2”…}
list5 = {“text1”, “text2”…}

and i want to save and read and compare these easily. I think there is “records?”, which could be used something like this:

set mylist to {name:"Joe", email:"user@host.com", address:"165 XXX", phone:"22929", text:"lkjlkjk"}
email of mylist

But how can i ask “email of Joe”? Especially if i have 300 people in list?

How i read 300 peoples data when script runs and save later on?

#4

wonder no longer!

cheers.

#5

Side note: Nice link, waltr. :cool:

#6

Thanks for the link.

I’m still trying to do that array thing. Never tried arrays before.

#7

It simply removes ‘(’ and ‘)’ from start and end of the resulting output of the defaults read :wink:

I am afraid you’ll have to do a repeat loop search through all list elements - for example:

set mylist to {{nam:"Joe", email:"Joe@work.com", address:"165 XXX", phone:"22929", tex:"lkjlkjk"}, {nam:"Jim", email:"Jim@host.com", address:"165 XXX", phone:"22929", tex:"lkjlkjk"}, {nam:"Joe", email:"Joe@home.com", address:"165 XXX", phone:"22929", tex:"lkjlkjk"}, {nam:"Jane", email:"Jane@aol.com", address:"165 XXX", phone:"22929", tex:"lkjlkjk"}, {nam:"Jeff", email:"Jeff@yahoo.com", address:"165 XXX", phone:"22929", tex:"lkjlkjk"}}
get my searchListforNam("Joe", mylist)

on searchListforNam(theNam, theList)
	set retval to {}
	repeat with listItem in theList
		if nam of listItem is theNam then copy (email of listItem) to the end of retval
	end repeat
	return retval
end searchListforNam

Btw: I think you should avoid reserved words (‘text’, ‘name’) as your record’s keys.

D.

#8

Now i need to save/read that array also i have normal list which need to be saved/read too.

#9

hi bruce,

if you are in any way responsible for that website, a hearty thank you! i use that one all the time.

hi cirno,

don’t know if this helps you in any way, but i wrote up a quick, ‘how to’ for ‘PlistBuddy’ a while back. you can find it here:

http://bbs.applescript.net/viewtopic.php?id=18380

i personally find PlistBuddy to be an easy way to work with plist files.

cheers.

#10

What ways there is to save/read this to plist?

set mylist to {{nam:"Joe", email:"Joe@work.com", address:"165 XXX", phone:"22929", tex:"lkjlkjk"}, {nam:"Jim", email:"Jim@host.com", address:"165 XXX", phone:"22929", tex:"lkjlkjk"}, {nam:"Joe", email:"Joe@home.com", address:"165 XXX", phone:"22929", tex:"lkjlkjk"}, {nam:"Jane", email:"Jane@aol.com", address:"165 XXX", phone:"22929", tex:"lkjlkjk"}, {nam:"Jeff", email:"Jeff@yahoo.com", address:"165 XXX", phone:"22929", tex:"lkjlkjk"}}