Bash output as Applescript list problems.

Question

This is just driving me nuts. I am trying to read a file in bash, remove duplicates, sort, and then display a "list choice" window via applescript.

My $DATALOG file is formatted like this:

field1 field2

field1 field3

field1 field4

etc...

Applescript=awk '{print $2}' $DATALOG | awk ' !x[$0]++' | sort -u | tr "_" " "| sed 's/^/\"/' | sed 's/$/\"/' | tr "\n" "," | sed 's/.$//'

Now, that line works GREAT. in $Applescript, I get an output like this:

"field 2","field 3", "field 4"

Which is exactly waht I want.

Now, I take that output, and add the backslash before the quotes, and the applescript parts.

Applescript=`echo "tell application \"System Events\" to return (choose from list {$Applescript})"| sed 's/\"/\\\"/g'`

And this gets me exactly what I want:

tell application \"System Events\" to return (choose from list {\"field 2\",\"field 3\",\"field 4\"})

Now, I try the osascript command:

osascript -e $Applescript

And I get an error:

4:4: syntax error: Expected expression but found end of script. (-2741)

---

So, I add quotes:

osascript -e "$Applescript"

And I get an error:

17:18: syntax error: Expected expression, property or key form, etc. but found unknown token. (-2741)

I can't tell what the hell's going on here, so I decide to COPY an echo of $Airport and try that as a variable.

Airport=tell application \"System Events\" to return (choose from list {\"field 2\",\"field 3\",\"field 4\"})

AND THAT WORKS WITHOUT ANY MODIFICATION.

So....

I need to figure out how to do this without having to set my variables permanently.

Answer 1

Don't try to make it more complicated than needed. Take advantage of the shell's two string quote characters to form one shell word as the value for the osascript -e argument:

Applescript=$(awk '{print $2}' $DATALOG | awk ' !x[$0]++' | sort -u | tr "_" " "| sed 's/^/\"/' | sed 's/$/\"/' | tr "\n" "," | sed 's/.$//')
osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to return (choose from list {'"$Applescript"'})'

Also, it's a good idea to avoid the use of backticks to do command substitution; the $(command) form is preferred because it is much easier to construct correct commands even when dealing with complex nestings.