Mac OS X in a Nutshell

Name

osascript

Synopsis

osascript  [options] [files]

Executes an OSA script from files, or from standard input if files is not specified.

Options

-e command

Use command as a line of script to be compiled. You can use more than one -e option; each will specify a new line of script.

-l OSAlang

Use OSA language OSAlang instead of the default AppleScript. Use the osalang command (described previously) to get information on all of the system’s OSA languages.

-s options

Provide output as specifed in options with one or more of the following flags:

h

Human readable (default).

s

Recompilable source.

e

Send errors to standard error (default).

o

Send errors to standard output.

Examples

To run a script that displays a dialog window from the Finder, first run osascript with no arguments, which allows you to enter the script into standard input:

% osascript
                     tell app "Finder"
                        activate
                        display dialog "Hi there"
                     end tell

Press Control + D to send an EOF, at which point osascript executes the script and prints the value returned:

button returned:OK

Run with the -s s option, the output is better formatted for subsequent parsing:

% osascript -s s
                     tell app "Finder"
                        activate
                        display dialog "Hi there"
                     end tell
                     {button returned:"OK"} 
                     or argument/switch mismatch