Applescript - list all running applications

Question

How can i get a list of running applications in the same order they appear when doing ⌘ + ⇥ from within an applescript?

I.e. if I use TextEdit, then Preview, then iCal, the order is

iCal, Preview, TextEdit

This question which asked if there was an API that could produce this list provided this answer:

$ cd /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework

$ nm LaunchServices | grep __LSCopyApplicationArrayInFrontToBackOrder

But how can I access this list from within an applescript?

Answer 1

tell application "System Events" to get name of every process

It looks sorted by launch date to me, but I don't know if that's reliable or not.

As for using the answer from SO: you would have to create a small program (or OSAX) in (Objective)-C to access that routine, make the program scriptable, then call that program/OSAX from your script.