How to add comments in a file and/or directory programmatically?

Question

I am trying to add comment in files and directory programmatically.

enter image description here

Is it possible to do? If yes, please help me to achieve this.

I looked for a direct API from Cocoa framework but no success, I will be happy to do this by any way (cocoa, shell or any scripts).

It looks like you can NOT do it with AppleScript since Finder's comment Item is read only. — El Tomato, Jul 03 '14 at 09:17
@ElTomato: I did the same with apple script only. check my answer below — Anoop Vaidya, Jul 03 '14 at 11:52

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 03 '14 at 11:33

I achieved this by Apple Script wrapped in Objective-C as :

 NSString *comment = @"hi boys";

NSOpenPanel *op = [NSOpenPanel new];
NSInteger answer = [op runModal];
if (answer == NSOKButton) {
    NSURL *url = [op URL];

    NSMutableString *appleScriptString = [NSMutableString new];
    [appleScriptString appendString:@"TELL APPLICATION \"FINDER\"\n"];

    NSString *setPath = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"SET filePath TO \"%@\" AS POSIX FILE \n", [url absoluteString]];
    [appleScriptString appendString:setPath];

    NSString *setComment = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"SET COMMENT OF (filePath AS ALIAS) TO \"%@\" \n", comment];
    [appleScriptString appendString:setComment];

    [appleScriptString appendString:@"END TELL"];

    NSAppleScript *commentorScript = [[NSAppleScript alloc] initWithSource:appleScriptString];
    NSDictionary *dictErr;
    [commentorScript executeAndReturnError:&dictErr];
    NSLog(@"Dict error = %@", dictErr);
}

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 03 '14 at 08:52

AFAIK there is no public API, if you google for Spotlight comments you will see various solutions which all are based on AppleEvents, Applescript or xattr.. like

http://www.cocoabuilder.com/archive/cocoa/178663-writing-spotlight-comments.html http://www.cocoabuilder.com/archive/cocoa/305493-adding-spotlight-comment-data-to-folder-file.html http://cocoadev.com/SpotlightAndTagging

How to add comments in a file and/or directory programmatically?

2 Answers2

Linked