Variable Declaration
You can use
either the set
or copy
keywords
to declare a variable and assign a value to it, as in the following
examples:
set myvar to (5 * 25) copy (5 * 25) to myvar
Both of these statements produce the same result; they store the
integer
125 in the myvar
variable. The set
version however is more
intuitive and is used more often to declare variables.
set
and copy
furthermore have
different results when you use the variable to contain a
list
, record
, or
script
object. (Chapter 9,
discusses this AppleScript feature.) The copy
keyword, as in:
copy listVar to newListVar
will make a new copy of the list
value stored in
listVar
and store this new list
in newListVar
. If you used:
set newListVar to listVar
the list
stored in newListVar
will still refer to the original list
(i.e.,
listVar
). The newListVar
variable will not get a new copy of the list
when
you use set
. Chapter 6 goes
further into this set
and copy
subject.
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