(every document file of every folder in folder thePath) as alias list

Question

On Dec 9, 2006, at 1:03 AM, Bill Hernandez wrote:
I use "set aList to get every file of every folder in startFolder" the references are to "document file path2file" instead of "alias to path2file", and I was not successful getting BBEdit to work with them without generating errors
On Dec 9, 2006, at 9:25 AM, Jim Correia wrote:
The open event requires a list of file references (aliases). This is true of all scriptable applications, not just BBEdit.
Normally you can coerce Finder object references to aliases. In this case a bug in the Finder is getting in your way.
set aList to get every file of every folder in startFolder
This is returning invalid object references - ones not even the Finder can resolve at a later date.
It seems to drop one level of hierarchy when building the object specifiers in response to that whose clause. You can avoid the Finder bug by using some alternate means of building up the file list.
Jim
Here's what I came up with, and it solved my problem...
-- ---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------
on script_title()
Filename : getevery_file_ofevery.scpt (Script Debugger)
Author : Bill Hernandez
Version : 1.0.0
Updated : Tuesday, January 02, 2007 ( 6:15 PM )
end script_title
-- ---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------
on script_notes( )
This is a work around to the alias list problem I encountered
end script_notes
-- ---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------
tell application "Finder"
activate
set thePath to choose folder
-- THIS DOES NOT GIVE THE CORRECT ANSWER --> instead of an alias list, it returns a document list
set aSel to (((every document file in folder thePath) & (every document file of every folder in folder thePath)) as alias list)
display dialog ("[2451] " & (get modification date of (item 1 of aSel)) as string)
set f_info to info for (alias ((item 1 of aSel) as text))
display dialog ("[2452] " & (get modification date of f_info) as string)
-- THIS DOES THE TRICK, it returns an alias list
set aSelection1 to (every document file in folder thePath) as alias list
set aSelection2 to ((every document file of every folder in folder thePath)) as alias list
set aSelection to (aSelection1 & aSelection2)
display dialog ("[2453] " & (get modification date of (item 1 of aSelection)) as string)
set f_info to info for (alias ((item 1 of aSelection) as text))
display dialog ("[2454] " & (get modification date of f_info) as string)
end tell
-- ---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------

Answer 1

Hi Bill,
That's not really a bug. In this line:
set aSel to (((every document file in folder thePath) & (every document file of every folder in folder thePath)) as alias list)
two list are being concatenated which returns a list and 'as alias list' doesn't work on lists. You could do this:
set aSel to (every document file in folder thePath as alias list) & (every document file of every folder in folder thePath as alias list)
If there aren't anymore levels, then you can use 'entire contents':
every document file of entire contents of folder thePath as alias list
Note that if only one file is returned, then it will error because of automatic coercion, so it's better to do it your way if you don't know how many files there are. Then, you would use an error handler to trap the error. Here's what I've been using:
try
set aSel1 to (every document file in folder thePath as alias list)
on error from o
set aSel1 to o as list
end try
try
set aSel2 to (every document file of every folder in folder thePath as alias list)
on error from o
set aSel2 to o as list
end try
set aSel to aSel1 & aSel2
There is another way to coerce finder references to something usable in other applications that can't deal with Finder references. You can coerce Finder references to strings using text item delimiters.
gl,