Using quotes in a AppleScript string

Question

I am working with AppleScript and need to do this:

set TextToWrite to " #!/bin/bash cd "$( dirname "$0" )" java -server -Xmx4G -jar ./craftbukkit.jar" "

As you can see, the text I need to make into a string has quotes in it. How do I set

#!/bin/bash cd "$( dirname "$0" )" java -server -Xmx4G -jar ./craftbukkit.jar"

to an AppleScript string without the quotes messing it up?

My answer is [below](http://stackoverflow.com/a/10668503/990363). Your `bash` command could be simplified to `cd "${0%/*}" && java `, BTW. No externals and a modicum of flow control. — kopischke, May 19 '12 at 20:14

score 26 · Accepted Answer · answered May 19 '12 at 20:08

26

To insert literal quotes into an Applescript string, you have to escape them, i.e.

set myString to "This is a \"quoted\" text."

AppleScript has the same convention as most languages, which is to use a backslash for escaping of special characters, of which there are only two: quotes and … backslash. See the section “Special string characters” of the AppleScript Language Guide.

answered May 19 '12 at 20:08

kopischke

3

Also note there are quite a few gotchas to the use of quotes in AppleScript strings if these are passed to the shell, most of them having to do with how the shell processes escaped and unescaped quotes. See [this question](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8138167/how-can-i-escape-shell-arguments-in-applescript) for some more details. – kopischke May 19 '12 at 20:36

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 28 '12 at 09:33

3

The following syntax can also be used:

set aString to "quoted"
set myString2 to "This is a " & quoted form of aString & " text."

answered Jun 28 '12 at 09:33

John Sidiropoulos

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 28 '13 at 15:56

0

quoted form of (dirname as POSIX path)

answered Nov 28 '13 at 15:56

llange

score 0 · Answer 4 · edited Nov 15 '15 at 15:30

0

set x to "He said   \" Enter the matrix.\"   "display dialog x

Just copy this into applescript the easiest way to understand.

edited Nov 15 '15 at 15:30

Tunaki

answered Nov 15 '15 at 15:16

Okaypol

This question is 3 years old! How is your answer better than @kopischke's? – hawkfalcon Nov 16 '15 at 17:23

score -3 · Answer 5 · answered Mar 28 '14 at 02:31

-3

Using quotes in applescript is quite easy you just need to make the line end and start in quotes

E.G

display dialog "hello world"

but when you decide to put a variable in the text you must use &

set my_name to "michael"

display dialog "hello" & my_name

thankyou

answered Mar 28 '14 at 02:31

Michael Sanders

The question is related to using quotes _within_ a string (i.e. escaping them). This just creates a standard string. – Darrick Herwehe Mar 31 '14 at 21:14
Oh im sorry i didnt realize you wanted to get out of strings to do that all you must use is the simle "&" symbol and if using – Michael Sanders Apr 01 '14 at 03:44

5 Answers5