Printing Variables

Scripting Forums AppleScript Studio & Xcode
#1

I’ve got about 2 dozen variables in my program and I would like to have the ability to print them out on a piece of paper so I can have a hard copy of the data. I’ve been having trouble coming up with a way to do this. I would appreciate any suggestions.

Thanks

#2

Hi,

two problems:
¢ How can I get the name of the variable as a text string?
¢ Variables can be anything (dates, strings, numbers, lists, records), so you have to format the data to be able to print it.

Here is a subroutine from Hanaan Rosenthal’s book: AppleScript, a comprehensive guide
to display the value of the variable in a “printable” format


property debug : true
set a to {1, 2, 3, 4}
msg(a)

on msg(theValue)
	local theClass, theValue, theClassString
	if debug then
		set theClass to class of theValue
		set theClassString to theClass as string
		if theClass is in {integer, real, number} then
			display dialog theClassString & return & theValue
		else if the class is string then
			display dialog theClassString & return & "\"" & theValue & "\""
		else if the class is date then
			set theStringValue to theValue as string
			display dialog theClassString & return & "date \"" & theValue & "\""
		else if theClass is list then
			set text item delimiters to ", "
			set theStringValue to theValue as string
			set text item delimiters to {""}
			display dialog "List of " & (count theValue) & " items" & return & "{" & theStringValue & "}"
		else
			try
				set theStringValue to theValue as string
				display dialog theClassString & return & theStringValue
			on error errorText
				display dialog "Debug error:" & return & theClassString & return & errorText
			end try
		end if
	end if
end msg

I would prefer to use the log function of AppleScript

#3

After a little more research into this matter I have decided to export the data to TextEdit instead of just trying to get the program to print by itself. That should make things a little easier.

#4

are you looking for a solution without user interaction or was it ok when a printer dialogue is shown?

If a printer dialogue was ok, why don’t you use a view (for example a text view)? Each view can be printed by calling:

call method "print:" of myView