Get
The default command is get
. In effect, a sentence or clause with no verb is assumed to have get
as its verb. So, for example:
tell application "Finder" name of folder 1 end tell
The get
command is supplied here and is the actual message sent to the Finder. It's exactly as if you had said get
explicitly:
tell application "Finder" get name of folder 1 end tell
One even sees code written like this:
tell application "Finder" to name of folder 1
AppleScript can also supply get
in the middle of a line where needed. As we have already seen, this code:
tell application "Finder" set oldname to name of folder 1 end tell
is actually treated by AppleScript as if it said this:
tell application "Finder" set oldname to (get name of folder 1) end tell
Do not imagine, however, that it makes no difference whether you ever say get
, and that you can blithely omit it. On the contrary, it's probably better to err in the other direction and say get
whenever you mean get
. There are no prizes for obfuscated AppleScript, and you're most likely to confuse yourself (and impress no one else) if you get into bad habits. More important, omission of get
from expressions of any complexity can cause runtime errors. For example, this:
tell application "Finder" to display dialog (name of folder 1)
-- error: Finder got an error: Can't make name of folder 1 into type string
is not the same as this:
tell application "Finder" to display dialog (get name of folder 1) -- Mannie
In the first example, name of folder 1
is a reference ...
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