Greetings, folks!
This one will be so obvious to you all, but it has had me baffled for
hours. (Script appended below.)
Please enlighten me! Thank you!
Richard Fairbanks
···
----
# the following is called with:
# do shell script "arch -i386 ruby '/Users/me/Desktop/Tests.rb'"
# Thank you, has!!
require "appscript"; include Appscript
require 'osax'; include OSAX
module Y; def self.z; 0; end; end
osax.say(Y.z) #=> "zero"
if p(Y.z): 0 # I assume this is the culprit!
osax.say(Y.z) #=> silence
end
osax.set_the_clipboard_to(Y.z) #=> {integer:0}
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
Richard Fairbanks wrote:
if p(Y.z): 0 # I assume this is the culprit!
osax.say(Y.z) #=> silence
end
What are you trying to do here?
What you've written is equivalent to
if p(Y.z)
0
osax.say(Y.z)
end
You haven't defined a method called p, so you get the standard Kernel#p
"p x" is like "puts x.inspect" and returns nil, which is treated as
false, so the code inside the if is not executed.
···
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/\.
Brian Candler wrote:
Richard Fairbanks wrote:
if p(Y.z): 0 # I assume this is the culprit!
osax.say(Y.z) #=> silence
end
What are you trying to do here?
Thank you for the response, Brian!
(Y,z) is initially defined as 0:
module Y; def self.z; 0; end; end
and both:
osax.say(Y.z) #=> "zero" and
p(Y.z) #=> {integer:0}
validates that Y.z) = 0
What if statement do I have to write to get Ruby to recognize an
existing value?
Thanks!
···
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/\.
if (Y.z == 0)
osax.say(Y.z)
end
you have two errors:
p(Y.z) as Brian explained is calling Kernel#p which always returns
nil, and so using that return value in an if is not what you want. The
second error is using : 0, when you are trying (I think) to compare
the result of Y.z with 0. What follows the colon is the first
statement in the if body, not a value to compare to.
Jesus.
···
On Mon, Apr 5, 2010 at 4:35 PM, Richard Fairbanks <lists@f-p-i.com> wrote:
Brian Candler wrote:
Richard Fairbanks wrote:
if p(Y.z): 0 # I assume this is the culprit!
osax.say(Y.z) #=> silence
end
What are you trying to do here?
Thank you for the response, Brian!
(Y,z) is initially defined as 0:
module Y; def self.z; 0; end; end
and both:
osax.say(Y.z) #=> "zero" and
p(Y.z) #=> {integer:0}
validates that Y.z) = 0
What if statement do I have to write to get Ruby to recognize an
existing value?
Richard Fairbanks wrote:
Thank you for the response, Brian!
(Y,z) is initially defined as 0:
module Y; def self.z; 0; end; end
That's Y.z, not (Y,z)
and both:
osax.say(Y.z) #=> "zero" and
p(Y.z) #=> {integer:0}
validates that Y.z) = 0
Yes. p(Y.z) shows you that Y.z is 0.
What if statement do I have to write to get Ruby to recognize an
existing value?
Just the bare expression, Y.z
if Y.z == 0
do_something
end
Or there's a one-liner form:
do_something if Y.z == 0
You could also write
if Y.z
do_something
end
and this would work, because any value which is not nil or false is
treated as true (so zero is true).
The colon is not a comparison operator, it is a (rarely-used) statement
separator. It's not what you want here.
e.g.
if true: puts "hello"; end
is same as
if true; puts "hello"; end
and
if true
puts "hello"
end
···
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/\.
Thank you, Jesús and Brian, that was what I needed!
Please forgive me for my vast ignorance. I have learned so many
different Mac scripting languages over the years and all of them "have
left the choir invisible and are pushing up daisies." Thus I had no
choice but to learn AppleScript. 
I am THRILLED that Ruby looks like a keeper! and I apologize again for
my extreme Ruby "noobieness."
Blessings and thank you!
Richard Fairbanks
···
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
No need to apologize. As I read sometimes in this list (I think it's
Robert Klemme who usually says this) we all started as newbies at some
point 
Jesus.
···
On Mon, Apr 5, 2010 at 5:10 PM, Richard Fairbanks <lists@f-p-i.com> wrote:
Thank you, Jesús and Brian, that was what I needed!
Please forgive me for my vast ignorance. I have learned so many
different Mac scripting languages over the years and all of them "have
left the choir invisible and are pushing up daisies." Thus I had no
choice but to learn AppleScript. 
I am THRILLED that Ruby looks like a keeper! and I apologize again for
my extreme Ruby "noobieness."
I couldn't agree more.
Just one additional bit of information: the syntax with the colon is not supported any more in 1.9.1:
robert@fussel:~$ ruby -vc x.rb
ruby 1.8.7 (2009-06-12 patchlevel 174) [i486-linux]
x.rb:7: warning: unused literal ignored
Syntax OK
robert@fussel:~$ ruby19 -vc x.rb
ruby 1.9.1p376 (2009-12-07 revision 26041) [i686-linux]
x.rb:7: syntax error, unexpected ':', expecting keyword_then or ';' or '\n'
if p(Y.z): 0 # I assume this is the culprit!
^
x.rb:7: warning: unused literal ignored
x.rb:9: syntax error, unexpected keyword_end, expecting $end
robert@fussel:~$ cat -n x.rb
1 require "appscript"; include Appscript
2 require 'osax'; include OSAX
3
4 module Y; def self.z; 0; end; end
5 osax.say(Y.z) #=> "zero"
6
7 if p(Y.z): 0 # I assume this is the culprit!
8 osax.say(Y.z) #=> silence
9 end
10
11 osax.set_the_clipboard_to(Y.z) #=> {integer:0}
12
robert@fussel:~$
Brian is absolutely right: the colon in this place is used so rarely that I even had forgotten about it. While we're at it, let's check another usage:
robert@fussel:~$ ruby -vce 'case x; when 1: puts true else puts false end'
ruby 1.8.7 (2009-06-12 patchlevel 174) [i486-linux]
Syntax OK
robert@fussel:~$ ruby19 -vce 'case x; when 1: puts true else puts false end'
ruby 1.9.1p376 (2009-12-07 revision 26041) [i686-linux]
-e:1: syntax error, unexpected ':', expecting keyword_then or ',' or ';' or '\n'
case x; when 1: puts true else puts false end
^
robert@fussel:~$
Aha, colon disappeared with "when" as well.
Kind regards
robert
···
On 04/05/2010 05:13 PM, Jesús Gabriel y Galán wrote:
On Mon, Apr 5, 2010 at 5:10 PM, Richard Fairbanks <lists@f-p-i.com> wrote:
Thank you, Jesús and Brian, that was what I needed!
Please forgive me for my vast ignorance. I have learned so many
different Mac scripting languages over the years and all of them "have
left the choir invisible and are pushing up daisies." Thus I had no
choice but to learn AppleScript.
I am THRILLED that Ruby looks like a keeper! and I apologize again for
my extreme Ruby "noobieness."
No need to apologize. As I read sometimes in this list (I think it's
Robert Klemme who usually says this) we all started as newbies at some
point
--
remember.guy do |as, often| as.you_can - without end
http://blog.rubybestpractices.com/
