How to fathom appscript

Hi,

I'm new to appscript (and relatively new to python) and I'm
having
trouble fathoming out how to determine what can be done with
each type
of object.

For example,

itunes = app('iTunes')
x =
itunes.sources.first.playlists[its.name.contains('MyName')]

This code fetches any playlists containing the string
'MyName'. But I
want an exact match. Using 'equals' rather than 'contains'
doesn't
work. How do I find out which operations its.name supports?
And more
generally, what is possible in other similar situations with
different
objects?

I also want to do what the following code suggests:

x =
itunes.sources.first.playlist_folders[its.name.equals('MyFol
der')]
y = itunes.sources.first.playlists[its.parent.equals(x)]

Is this possible?

Many thanks,
Hamish
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On Mon, Dec 18, 2006 at 11:11:27PM +0000, Hamish Allan
wrote:
> itunes = app('iTunes')
> x =
itunes.sources.first.playlists[its.name.contains('MyName')]
> 
> This code fetches any playlists containing the string
'MyName'. But I
> want an exact match. Using 'equals' rather than
'contains' doesn't
> work.

You just use '==' instead.

In [4]: itunes.sources.first.playlists[its.name ==
'Stations']()
Out[4]:
[app(u'/Applications/iTunes.app').sources.ID(41).user_playli
sts.ID(1936)]

But in this case, you don't need to.

In [6]: itunes.sources.first.playlists['Stations']()
Out[6]:
app(u'/Applications/iTunes.app').sources.ID(41).user_playlis
ts.ID(1936)

Most objects support multiple reference forms, as you'll see
if you
look at their documentation.

> How do I find out which operations its.name supports?
And more
> generally, what is possible in other similar situations
with different
> objects?

Use .help().  So, for example, you can see that the
playlists can be
referenced by index, name or ID:

In [7]: itunes.sources.first.playlists.help()
============================================================
==================
Appscript Help (-t)

Reference:
app(u'/Applications/iTunes.app').sources.first.playlists

------------------------------------------------------------
------------------
Description of reference

Element: playlists -- by index, name, id
[...]

Note the reference forms above.

It also helps to view the scripting dictionary, either using
appscript's tools for doing so in a Web browser, or just
with Script
Editor (as I normally do).

> I also want to do what the following code suggests:
> 
> x =
itunes.sources.first.playlist_folders[its.name.equals('MyFol
der')]

You want 'folder_playlists' not 'playlist_folders'.  So
again it's
pretty simple:

In [15]:
itunes.sources.first.folder_playlists['Statistics']()
Out[15]:
app(u'/Applications/iTunes.app').sources.ID(41).folder_playl
ists.ID(122340)

> y =
itunes.sources.first.playlists[its.parent.equals(x)]

Unfortunately here you run into a problem, as Apple didn't
fully
implement terminology for 'folder playlists', but you can
view the
scripting dictionary to figure it out.  'parent', while a
property of
playlists, isn't always set.  So the only thing I could
figure out was
to iterate through them in Python:

In [45]: stats_id =
itunes.folder_playlists['Statistics'].id()
In [46]: [p for p in itunes.user_playlists() if
p.parent.exists()
   ....:  and p.parent.id() == stats_id]
Out[46]: 
[app(u'/Applications/iTunes.app').sources.ID(41).user_playli
sts.ID(1032),
 app(u'/Applications/iTunes.app').sources.ID(41).user_playli
sts.ID(1158),
 app(u'/Applications/iTunes.app').sources.ID(41).user_playli
sts.ID(1060)]

-- 
Nicholas Riley <njrileyuiuc.edu> | <http://www.uiu
c.edu/ph/www/njriley>
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