AppleScript in a Nutshell

Name

data

Allowed coercion

list with one item, as in {<<data utxt00650061007200740068>>}

Syntax

Set theVar to "earth" as Unicode text (* returns <<data 
utxt00650061007200740068>> *)

Description

data is a value type that can be used to store data that cannot be stored using any of the other AppleScript value types.

The Script Editor Result window displays raw data surrounded by double-arrow or guillemet characters (“<< >>”). You can produce these symbols on the Macintosh keyboard by typing option-backslash (“<<”) and option-shift-backslash (“>>”).

For example, in OS 9 Unicode text is an AppleScript value type that is displayed as raw data in the Script Editor Result window (even though it is still stored as type Unicode text). However, AppleScript 1.6 with Mac OS 9.1 and OS X can display Unicode text as regular strings (as in “Hello”). The following example displays a lowercase “u” character as Unicode text:

set ucode to "u" as Unicode text

The Script Editor Result window will return the value as “<<data utxt0075>>.”

Unicode text uses two bytes (16 bits) per character to store strings. (See later in this section for more details on the Unicode text class.)

Within the guillemets, the word “data” is followed by a space then a four-character code representing the Unicode text class (”utxt“). The actual data representing the lowercase “u” precedes the closing guillemet character (“0075>>”). The lowercase “u” is represented in the ASCII table as the number 75 in hexadecimal form (117 in ...