AppleScript: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition

Date

A date is a date-time. A literal date is an object string specifier . In constructing a date, you may use any string value that can be interpreted as a date, a time, or a date-time; AppleScript (or more probably the system) is quite liberal in what it will accept, provided that the string makes sense in terms of the date and time format settings in your International System Preferences . AppleScript supplies missing values such as today's date (if you give only a time) or this year (if you don't give a year) or midnight (if you give only a date). To form a date object for the current date-time, use the current date scripting addition command (see Chapter 21).

AppleScript presents a literal date specifier in long date-time format in accordance with your International preferences. It does this even within your script, on decompilation, if you use a literal string in a date specifier:

date "5/25/2005" -- rewritten: date "Wednesday, May 25, 2005 12:00:00 AM"

If the expression "5/25/2005" isn't a date according to your International preferences, this code won't compile. For example, if you have U.K. settings, you'd need to type date "25/5/2005". Scripts that form dates dynamically by coercing from a string, like most of the examples in this section, are subject to the same caveat (and are thus not very portable).

AppleScript knows nothing of time zones , and assumes the Gregorian calendar even for dates before its invention. An attempt to form a date specifier earlier than the start ...