Pass in variable from shell script to applescript

Question

I\'ve got a shell script that I call that uses osascript, and that osascript calls a shell script and passes in a variable that I\'ve set in the or

Answer 1

You can also use a run handler or export:

osascript -e 'on run argv
    item 1 of argv
end run' aa

osascript -e 'on run argv
    item 1 of argv
end run' -- -aa

osascript - -aa <<'END' 2> /dev/null
on run {a}
    a
end run
END

export v=1
osascript -e 'system attribute "v"'

I don't know any way to get STDIN. on run {input, arguments} only works in Automator.

Answer 2

Shell variables doesn't expanding inside single quotes. When you to want pass a shell variable to osascript you need to use double "" quotes. The problem is, than you must escape double quotes needed inside the osascript, like:

the script

say "Hello" using "Alex"

you need escape quotes

text="Hello"
osascript -e "say \"$text\" using \"Alex\""

This not very readable, therefore it much better to use the bash's heredoc feature, like

text="Hello world"
osascript <<EOF
say "$text" using "Alex"
EOF

And you can write multiline script inside for a free, it is much better than using multiple -e args...