Name
reference
Allowed coercion
string depending on the nature of the reference
|
Syntax
set theRef to a reference to (the name of file 1 of desktop)
Description
The reference
class points to
an object or value. In the syntax example, theRef
points to the name of file 1
on the desktop, no
matter which file becomes the first file on the desktop over time. In
other words, the value of this reference can change. If you just set
theRef
to name of file 1 of desktop
as opposed to a
reference
to name of file 1 of desktop
, then theRef
would contain a
string
(such as
“myfile.txt”) rather than a
reference to the name. The next time you referred to the variable
theRef
in the script, it would still have the
string
value
“myfile.txt,” even if this file
were no longer file 1 of desktop
(i.e., it might
now be file 2 or file 3 because the desktop files got changed
around). A reference to the name of file 1
, however, would continue to provide the name of the
desktop’s first file, even if that file had changed
since the theRef
variable was initialized.
Examples
To set a variable to a
reference
class, you use the a reference to
operator, or a ref to
for short. Some
references, such as Finder references to files or folders, can be
coerced to strings:
tell application "Finder" set theRef to a reference to the name of file 1 get theRef as string -- returns "filename.txt" end tell
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