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Inside Macintosh: Interapplication Communication /

Chapter 3 - Introduction to Apple Events / Creating and Sending Apple Events

Creating an Apple Event Record

Use the AECreateAppleEvent function to create an Apple event record. Using the arguments you pass to the AECreateAppleEvent function, the Apple Event Manager constructs the data structures describing the event class, the event ID, and the target address attributes of an Apple event. The event class and event ID, of course, identify the particular event you wish to send. The target address identifies the intended recipient of the Apple event.

You can specify two other attributes with the AECreateAppleEvent function: the reply ID and the transaction ID. For the reply ID attribute, you usually specify the kAutoGenerateReturnID constant to the AECreateAppleEvent function. This constant ensures that the Apple Event Manager generates a unique return ID for the reply Apple event returned from the server. For the transaction ID attribute, you usually specify the kAnyTransactionID constant, which indicates that this Apple event is not one of a series of interdependent Apple events.