Applescript returning error when storing strings in a list

Question

I wrote a simple script that finds out how many active processes are running on the machine right now, and outputs the paths of each one into an array as a string.

Here's my code (it really has no legitimate function, I'm just trying to try different things to see how applescript works):

tell application "System Events"
  set activeProcess to number of process
  set paths to {0}
  repeat with n from 1 to activeProcess
    set last item of list paths to (file of process n as string)
  end repeat
end tell

And here's the error applescript editor returns when I hit run:

System Events got an error: Can’t set list {0} to "Macintosh HD:System:Library:CoreServices:loginwindow.app:".

What am I don't wrong?

adayzdone · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-14 17:01:57Z

2

Try:

tell application "System Events" to set myprocess to files of processes

or

set AppleScript's text item delimiters to linefeed
tell application "System Events" to set myprocess to paragraphs of (files of processes as text)
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {""}

You can build a list from a repeat loop like this:

set paths to {}
tell application "System Events"
    set activeProcess to processes
    repeat with n from 1 to count activeProcess
        set end of paths to (file of item n of activeProcess as text)
    end repeat
end tell

or like this:

set paths to {}
tell application "System Events"
    set activeProcess to processes
    repeat with aProcess in activeProcess
        set end of paths to (file of aProcess as text)
    end repeat
end tell

edited Mar 14, 2013 at 17:01

answered Mar 14, 2013 at 16:50

adayzdone

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1 Comment

DJ Madeira Over a year ago

Wow, that's not very intuitive; and Applescript is supposed to be amateur friendly :( Thanks for your help!

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