Hi all
Can anyone help out with this?
I have a series of files whose names I need to validate before I perform some other action on them. A correct file name would look something like this:
NP041702_IL_DESCRIPTION.tif
(If this helps the naming convention above works out like this:
NP - this is a two letter designator for one of our magazines 041702 - the date, written MMDDYY IL - code for type of file - IL = illustration DESCRIPTION - brief description of file contents - i.e. blueball etc.
I need to check for the first 3 items. The mag designator is easy, I’m getting stumped with the date portion. What I have been doing is stripping the date portion out of the file name and trying to coerce it to a integer. I trap for an errror and if it works then at least the I know that characters 3-8 of the file name are numbers. I can then check the last two numbers of that string to see if they equal 02. It partially works. Here’s my practice list of files:
DR041002_PI_bigcover.eps DRreallybigcover.pct DRreallybigcover.tif HI040902_PI_bigcover.tif MP041002_FL_testflash.fla MP041002_FL_testflash.swf MP041102_WG_hampsterdance.gif notquitespongebob.ai wrongfilename.gif flashtest.html
Of this list the script is only recognizing 3 of the files as correct:
DR041002_PI_bigcover.eps MP041002_FL_testflash.fla MP041002_FL_testflash.swf
I’m not sure why the other files aren’t coming in as correct.
is there a better way to do this than coercing the string to an integer?
Thanks
Steve
Would something like this work?
set fileNames to {"DR041002_PI_bigcover.eps", "DRreallybigcover.pct", "DRreallybigcover.tif", ¬
"HI040902_PI_bigcover.tif", "MP041002_FL_testflash.fla", "MP041002_FL_testflash.swf", ¬
"MP041102_WG_hampsterdance.gif", "notquitespongebob.ai", "wrongfilename.gif", "flashtest.html"}
set dateFailed to {}
set dateOK to {}
repeat with thisFileName in fileNames
set testForDate to text 3 thru 8 of thisFileName
try
set formatAsDate to date (text 1 thru 2 of testForDate & "/" & text 3 thru 4 of testForDate & "/" & text 5 thru end of testForDate)
copy thisFileName to end of dateOK
on error
copy thisFileName to end of dateFailed
end try
end repeat
My test shows 5 with dates and 5 without.
Rob
All:
Thanks for the responses. (Uh, has dude, I must have, liked, missed your post on the AS list_serv) The date issue is not problem as we are a US firm and this script is for in house use.
Apologies for not posting my code - it’s just real long, there’s a lot going on before I get to this point and variables are being passed on down and it was late in the day and I didn’t feel like explaining it all and yadda, yadda, yadda. : ) Fortunately the soultion I got works and I really appreciate the help.
Steve