How to copy files from clipboard with AppleScript?

Question

I have this shell script which resolves a symbolic link (symlink) to a folder and copies it to the current working directory:

cp -R `grealpath /some/dir/symlink_to_folder` .

The command grealpath just resolves a symbolic link when coreutils are installed on Mac OS X.

My question is: What would be the equivalent as an AppleScript? The workflow would be ideally like this: Copy one or more symbolic link-folders in Finder to the clipboard, then rightclick on another folder in Finder -> services -> run the newly created script to copy all symlinks from the clipboard to the other folder.

Answer 1

You could create a service like this:

cp -R "$(/usr/local/bin/grealpath "$(osascript -e 'POSIX path of «class furl» of (the clipboard as record)')")" "$1"

If the clipboard contains references to files, «class furl» of (the clipboard as record) returns a file object for the first file.

You might also use cp -RH source target instead of cp -R `grealpath source` target . If the symlink and its target have different names, it uses the name of the symlink though.

 -H    If the -R option is specified, symbolic links on the command line
       are followed.  (Symbolic links encountered in the tree traversal
       are not followed.)

Answer 2

Applescript will treat a symlink like it's just another folder, so all you have to do is duplicate the contents.

Tell application "Finder"
    repeat with i from 1 to (count symlinks)
    set newFolder to make new folder at destFolder with properties {name:item i of symlinks)
    duplicate entire contents of item i of symlinks to newFolder
end