OSASCRIPT(1) BSD General Commands Manual OSASCRIPT(1)
NAME
osascript -- execute AppleScripts and other OSA language scripts
SYNOPSIS
osascript [-l language] [-s flags] [-e statement | programfile] [argument ...]
DESCRIPTION
osascript executes the given script. It was designed for use with AppleScript, but will work with any
Open Scripting Architecture (OSA) language. To get a list of the OSA languages installed on your sys-tem, system,
tem, use osalang(1). For documentation on AppleScript itself, see <http://www.apple.com/applescript.
osascript will look for the script in one of the following three places:
1. Specified line by line using -e switches on the command line.
2. Contained in the file specified by the first filename on the command line. This file may be plain
text or a compiled script.
3. Passed in using standard input. This works only if there are no filename arguments; to pass argu-ments arguments
ments to a STDIN-read script, you must explicitly specify ``-'' for the script name.
Any arguments following the script will be passed as a list of strings to the direct parameter of the
``run'' handler. For example:
a.scpt:
on run argv
return "hello, " & item 1 of argv & "."
end run
% osascript a.scpt world
hello, world.
The options are as follows:
-e statement
Enter one line of a script. If -e is given, osascript will not look for a filename in the argu-ment argument
ment list. Multiple -e options may be given to build up a multi-line script. Because most
scripts use characters that are special to many shell programs (e.g., AppleScript uses single and
double quote marks, ``('', ``)'', and ``*''), the statement will have to be correctly quoted and
escaped to get it past the shell intact.
-l language
Override the language for any plain text files. Normally, plain text files are compiled as
AppleScript.
-s flags
Modify the output style. The flags argument is a string consisting of any of the modifier char-acters characters
acters e, h, o, and s. Multiple modifiers can be concatenated in the same string, and multiple
-s options can be specified. The modifiers come in exclusive pairs; if conflicting modifiers are
specified, the last one takes precedence. The meanings of the modifier characters are as fol-lows: follows:
lows:
h Print values in human-readable form (default).
s Print values in recompilable source form.
osascript normally prints its results in human-readable form: strings do not have quotes
around them, characters are not escaped, braces for lists and records are omitted, etc. This
is generally more useful, but can introduce ambiguities. For example, the lists `{"foo",
"bar"}' and `{{"foo", {"bar"}}}' would both be displayed as `foo, bar'. To see the results in
an unambiguous form that could be recompiled into the same value, use the s modifier.
e Print script errors to stderr (default).
o Print script errors to stdout.
osascript normally prints script errors to stderr, so downstream clients only see valid
results. When running automated tests, however, using the o modifier lets you distinguish
script errors, which you care about matching, from other diagnostic output, which you don't.
SEE ALSO
osacompile(1), osalang(1)
HISTORY
osascript in Mac OS X 10.0 would translate `\r' characters in the output to `\n' and provided c and r
modifiers for the -s option to change this. osascript now always leaves the output alone; pipe through
tr(1) if necessary.
Prior to Mac OS X 10.4, osascript did not allow passing arguments to the script.
Mac OS X June 10, 2003 Mac OS X
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