Mac OS X in a Nutshell

Scripting the Terminal

As Chapter 19 describes, the Terminal application doesn’t do anything so much as it provides a command-line interface to Darwin, the Unix system running underneath Mac OS X’s GUI layers. AppleScript reflects this by offering only one real Terminal-scripting command: do script. If you tell the Terminal application do script some_command, then the Terminal acts as if you had invoked some_command by typing it on the command line.

For example, here is an alternate way to send someone email through an AppleScript, going through the Darwin’s mail command (via the Terminal) instead of the Mail application (assuming that you have a mail server running locally):

set theMessage to "Hi, Mom!"
tell application "Terminal"
    do script "echo '" & theMessage & "' | mail [e-mail]"
end tell

Another level of scripting the Terminal involves using any of the Unix scripting languages that ship with Mac OS X, including Perl, Python, and Ruby. These languages can be used for tasks ranging from simple glue between Darwin programs to acting as full-fledged applications in their own right.

Unfortunately, one can’t learn these languages by a little bit of guided stumbling, as one can use to start playing with AppleScript (see Section 16.2.2 earlier in this chapter). That said, they’re high-level languages that are not very difficult to pick up, and your Mac includes full documentation for each by way of the Terminal’s man command. (For example, man perl.) It’s likely worth your while ...