passing parameters between applescript and shell script

Question

I need to use the Apple choose file dialog to select a file to use in a bash script. I believe the only way to do this is in AppleScript. I would like to call an AppleScript from within bash, and have it return the location of the selected file as a variable to be used in the shell script. So far I have:

osascript <<EOF
    tell Application "Finder"
        set strPath to "/my/default/location/"
        set thePDF to file (choose file with prompt "Choose a PDF: " of type { " com.adobe.pdf" ,  "dyn.agk8ywvdegy" } without invisibles default location strPath) as alias
        set PDFName to name of file thePDF
    end tell
EOF

How do I now pass the location of the PDF - the AppleScript variable PDFName - back to the Shell?

Answer 1

Here's a modified version of your script:

thePDF=$(osascript <<EOF
    set strPath to "/my/default/location/"
    set thePDF to (choose file with prompt ("Choose a PDF: ") ¬
        of type {"com.adobe.pdf", "dyn.agk8ywvdegy"} ¬
        default location strPath ¬
        without invisibles)
    set PDFName to the POSIX path of thePDF
EOF
)

The changes to note are:

1. Removing the tell application ... end tell statements, which are unnecessary;
2. Hence removing the file object specifier and the coercion to alias , as the choose file command returns a file alias object by default;
3. Eliminating the space in " com.adobe.pdf" to allow PDF files to be selectable;
4. Changing the penultimate line of the AppleScript code to: set PDFName to the POSIX path of thePDF ;
5. Assigning the output of osascript to a bash variable using thePDF=$(...) .

The osascript returns the full posix path to the file, eg /Users/CK/Documents/somefile.pdf , which is now assigned to the bash variable $thePDF .

---

If you happen to get a warning about /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/FinderKit.framework/Versions/A/FinderKit , this can be ignored and silenced by making the following small edit: osascript 2>/dev/null <<EOF .

Answer 2

You can send text generated within osascript to stdout and catch it, eg, in a variable. Like so:

#!/bin/bash

PDFNAME=$( osascript <<EOF
    tell Application "Finder"
        set strPath to "/your/pdf/path/"
        set thePDF to file (choose file with prompt "Choose a PDF: " without invisibles default location strPath) as alias
        set PDFName to name of file thePDF
    end tell
    copy PDFName to stdout
EOF )

echo "From bash: $PDFNAME"

Here, the whole osascript bit gets executed as "command substitution" (see bash man page), where the expression between $( ... ) is replaced by the result of the execution of that expression.

Key here is of course the AppleScript line "copy ... to stdout" above.

Alternatively, you could pipe the output of the osascript to the next command by

osascript <<EOF
    (your code here)
    copy output to stdout
EOF | next_command