Data Types
Like most scripting tools, AppleScript is
a “loosely typed” programming
language. This means that for the most part you do not have to
specify exactly how the computer will store some data when you set a
variable to a value. AppleScript takes care (or tries to) of the
details for you. So when you use the code fragment: [set num to 75
], AppleScript knows that num is an
integer
or number
. If you use:
set numstr to "I'm a string"
numstr
is automatically stored as a
string
. This feature does not forbid you from
specifying the data type of a variable, which is a good idea in many
situations and creates more readable code. If
you want to explicitly set a variable to an AppleScript data type,
use the as
keyword, as in get current date as string
. If you want to ensure that a number will be
stored as a real data type, use code such
as:
set num to 75.0
This code sets the variable num
to a
real
data type, which is a very large number that
can include a decimal point, similar to a double
type in Java. A program can now increment or increase the variable
num
to a much higher number than it could if it
were left as an integer
, which has a range of
-536,870,911 to 536,870,911, inclusive. What if you wanted to have a
variable keep track over time of the number of people on Earth who
are connected to the Web? This number would eventually exceed one
billion, so you would want to use a variable of a
real
data type.
However, explicitly setting data types in AppleScript is also a potentially ...
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