| <HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Using python to create Macintosh applications, part zero</TITLE></HEAD> | 
 | <BODY> | 
 | <H1>Using python to create Macintosh applications, part zero</H1> | 
 | <HR> | 
 |  | 
 | This document will show you how to create a simple mac-style | 
 | application using Python. We will glance at how to use file dialogs and | 
 | messages. <p> | 
 |  | 
 | Our example program <a href="example0/checktext.py">checktext.py</a> asks | 
 | the user for a text file and checks what style end-of-lines the file has. | 
 | This may need a little explanation: ASCII text files are almost identical | 
 | on different machines, with one exception:  | 
 | <ul> | 
 | <li> Unix systems terminate lines with the "linefeed" character, <code>0x0a</code>, | 
 | <li> Macintoshes terminate lines with the "carriage return" character, | 
 | <code>0x0d</code> and | 
 | <li> MSDOS and Windows terminate lines with first a carriage return and then a linefeed. | 
 | </ul> | 
 |  | 
 | Let us have a look at the program. The first interesting statement in the main | 
 | program is the call to <code>macfs.PromptGetFile</code>. This is one of the routines | 
 | that allow you to ask the user to specify a file. You pass it one required | 
 | argument, the prompt string. There are up to four optional MacOS <em>file type</em> arguments | 
 | you can pass, as 4-byte strings. Specifying no file | 
 | type will allow the user to select any file, specifying one or more types restricts | 
 | the user to files of this type. File types are explained in most books on the Mac. <p> | 
 |  | 
 | <code>PromptGetFile</code> returns two values: an <em>FSSpec</em> object and a | 
 | success indicator. The FSSpec object is the "official" MacOS way of specifying a | 
 | file, more on it later. The success indicator tells you whether the user clicked OK | 
 | or Cancel. In the event of Cancel we simply exit back to the finder. <p> | 
 |  | 
 | <code>PromptGetFile</code> has a number of friends that do similar things: | 
 | <ul> | 
 | <li> <code>StandardGetFile</code> is identical to <code>PromptGetFile</code> but | 
 | without the prompt. It has up to four optional filetype arguments. | 
 | <li> <code>StandardPutFile</code> asks the user for an output file. It will | 
 | warn the user when she tries to overwrite an existing file. The routine has one | 
 | mandatory argument: a prompt string. Pass the empty string if you do not want a prompt. | 
 | <li> <code>GetDirectory</code> asks the user for a folder (or directory, in unix terms). | 
 | It has one optional argument: a prompt string. | 
 | </ul> | 
 | All routines return an FSSpec and a success indicator. <p> | 
 |  | 
 | There are many things you can do with FSSpec objects (see the  | 
 | <a href="http://www.python.org/doc/lib/macfs.html">macfs</a> section in the | 
 | <a href="http://www.python.org/doc/lib/Top.html">Python Library Reference</a> | 
 | for details), but passing them to <code>open</code> is not | 
 | one of them. For this, we first have to convert the FSSpec object to a pathname, with | 
 | the <code>as_pathname</code> method. This returns a standard MacOS-style pathname with | 
 | colon-separated components. This can then be passed to <code>open</code>. Note that | 
 | we call open with mode parameter <code>'rb'</code>: we want to read the file in binary | 
 | mode. Python, like C and C++, uses unix-style line endings internally and opening a | 
 | file in text mode (<code>'r'</code>) would result in conversion of carriage-returns to | 
 | linefeeds upon reading. This is something that Mac and DOS programmers are usually aware | 
 | of but that never ceases to amaze unix buffs. <p> | 
 |  | 
 | After we open the file we attempt to read all data into memory. If this fails we use | 
 | <code>EasyDialogs.Message</code> to display a message in a standard dialog box and exit. | 
 | The EasyDialogs module has a few more useful simple dialog routines, more on that in  | 
 | <a href="example1.html">example 1</a>. <p> | 
 |  | 
 | The rest of the code is pretty straightforward: we check that the file actually contains | 
 | data, count the number of linefeeds and returns and display a message with our guess of the | 
 | end-of-line convention used in the file. <p> | 
 |  | 
 | The <a href="example0">example0</a> folder has three text files in Mac, Unix and DOS style | 
 | for you to try the program on. After that, you can continue with <a href="example1.html">example 1</a> | 
 | or go back to the <a href="index.html">index</a> to find another interesting topic. <p> | 
 |  | 
 | <HR> | 
 | <A HREF="http://www.cwi.nl/~jack">Jack Jansen</A>, | 
 | <A HREF="mailto:jack@cwi.nl">jack@cwi.nl</A>, 18-July-1996. | 
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