Help with Address Book sort script

Scripting Forums AppleScript | Mac OS X
, , ,
#1

Have a peculiar problem with the Address Book script below, that I just cannot fathom.

almost 1000 entries.

Address Book script

tell application "Address Book" to launch
tell application "Address Book" to set unsortedList to name of every person
set {TID, text item delimiters} to {text item delimiters, linefeed & "|||"}
set theList to (do shell script "echo " & quoted form of (unsortedList as string) & "| sort  -d -f")
set text item delimiters to TID
theList

Each time theList is returned there is one record returned without the preface |||.

I have deleted that record and replaced it with a replica.

But the next time the script is run another single record (not the replica) is returned without the preface |||.

And again and again.

Would very much appreciate any help.

Val

AppleScript: Version 2.3 (118)
Browser: Safari 533.16
Operating System: Mac OS X (10.6)

#2

Hi,

the first item of the retrieved name list doesn’t have the linefeed-pipe prefix
because the delimiter will be put between each element of the list.

#3

First, many thanks for the prompt reply.

The retrieved list is always sorted alphabetically. So the record without my ||| marker is located all over the place.—perhaps in the order in which the records were entered.

Is there a way to remedy this ? I actually am not very skilled at this and rely mainly on scripts by others on this forum.

My intent is to write the list to a text file and then to replace the ||| marker with "pop1.option = " (for insertion into a Pashua dialog)* with a script I picked up at -http://macscripter.net/viewtopic.php?id=11374 by Julio.

*have done the insertion successfully into a Pashua dialog with a repeat loop but would hope that the alternative that I am currently considering would be faster when the Address Book database is very large.

If you have any ideas I’d be thrilled.

Val

#4

Very easy


.
set theList to (do shell script "echo " & quoted form of ("|||" & (unsortedList as string)) & "| sort  -d -f")
.
#5

Hello.

I have only a kluge for you.

It is not particular fancy nor fast but it might work. nb! untested

set theList to (do shell script "echo " & quoted form  of (unsortedList as string) & | sed '/\|\|\|/!s/^/^\|\|\|/g " | sort -d -f" ')

Hopes this helps and best regards

McUsr

#6

Many thanks StefanK.

Works. and I am a bit silly!

This forum has a truly remarkable collection of generous experts.

I will also have a go, later on, with your kluge, McUsr and will post if successful.

Val

#7

Hello

I gave it a little thought while I were out, and think you should add -e ‘/|||/’ to the end
so that the whole expression becomes

set theList to (do shell script "echo " & quoted form of (unsortedList as string) & | sed '/\|\|\|/!s/^/^\|\|\|/g'  -e '/\|\|\|/' | sort -d -f" ')

But why do this if Stefan solutions work Val? It it is really a lot slower.

But it is good to know that it exists. There is this file sed1liners.txt at sourcefourge.net which is nice to have for such odd situations. :slight_smile:

Best Regards

McUsr

#8

Hello.

I tested the actually sed and it didn’t work as you got it.

It did however work with a minor modification. I had a text file of 102 lines which were prepended with ‘|||’ then I removed the ‘|||’ from one line in the middle, and just ran this command (with its output ). As you can see I got appended an extra line solely consisting of ‘|||’ because the cat command added a linefeed after the last line or that sed did.

[code]510$ cat StatesNew.txt |sed ‘/|||/!s/.*/|||&/g’ >StatesTinkered.txt
511$ diff StatesNew.txt StatesTinkered.txt
18c18
< Dover

|||Dover
102c102
< |||Cheyenne
\ No newline at end of file

|||Cheyenne
512$[/code]
This line of sed works for situations where a missing marker is placed randomly in a file:


sed '/\|\|\|/!s/.*/\|\|\|&/g'

Just change the pattern for the marker to something suitable.

Best Regards

McUsr