How to manage file name containing a date with /

[André Bisseret]

Sorry Dar I posted my answer to your first message before finding this one!


Le 22 juil. 2013 à 16:11, Dar Scott a écrit :

> I think I might not be under standing the situation.
> 
> Questions inline.
> 
> On Jul 22, 2013, at 6:50 AM, André Bisseret wrote:
> 
>> Bonjour,
>> 
>> Jacque, Dar and Peter, thank you much for your attention to my problem.
>> Since your posts I made a number of trials during the weekend, following your suggestions but with no success.
>> 
>> Reminder : the names of the files I am trying to launch from script have the following format :
>> Joe PATIENT - bio checkup - 09/2013.pdf
> 
> How do you know it has a "/"?  If it has a ":" in OS X Finder and a dot of some sort in Windows Explorer, how do you know about "/"?  Was that what was typed in at the scanner or at some strange OS? 

>> 
>> On Mac the slash is replace automatically by colon (:) (don't know why!)
> 
> I'm not sure what "replaced by" means.  Do you mean after a copy?  Or do you mean as viewed from a Mac, that is the file server file or flash drive file looks different depending on what system is looking at it?

My friend scans the paper documents he is receiving, save them as PDF and give them a name such as:
 Joe PATIENT - bio checkup - 09/2013.pdf
All this PDF files for all his patients are in a same folder (DOCS BASE). There they keep the slash.

It is when I built the list of files concerning one patient (set the repertory to DOCS BASE and put "the files" into a variable) that one gets ":" instead of the slash
Then it is when I try my app on Windows one sees this (damned) dot instead of  ":"

> 
>> Anyway, all is working well 
>> I can open a file by double-clicking on it in the folder 
>> And, I can launch it by script (using its filename). No problem.
>> -------
>> On Windows, the : (colon) is replaced with what seems to be a character ( a kind of dot. (or small bullet point?) with a sort of white space before it and a white space after. But, these are not "space" character (one can't delete them; on can only select the all 
> 
> Replace?  As above.  Is this after a copy or as viewed from Windows?

It is as viewed from Windows, not after a copy
> 
>> - Double-clicking on a document opens it (good)
> 
> I see. The symbol in the file name is shown as a dot of some sort.  That might be the actual character there

> or it might be some representation of a bad filename character.
Seems to me that it is rather that last case

>  If that bad character is actually a slash, you have a couple barriers in opening the file.  First of all, the slash is processed by LiveCode and converted to backslash in filenames.  Second, windows might interpret that as the end of the file name and the rest is some parameter of some sort; I'm not sure.
> 
> You might get some indication of what character is there by using dir in the command window.  Or use the LiveCode files() function.  You can try that.  Or pull out the exact code that files() returns for that character and use it.
> 
> Here are some things you can try that might launch the document without knowing what that character is:
> 
> Try LiveCode 'launch' with a question mark for the character.  I doubt that will work, but it is an easy test.  Try backslash & slash for the character.  
> 
> Try launching with shell() on Windows.  Try these:
> 
> get shell( quote & "Joe PATIENT - bio checkup - 09?2013.pdf" & quote)  -- wildcard
> get shell( quote & "Joe PATIENT - bio checkup - 09/2013.pdf" & quote)  -- quote slash
> 
> get shell( "start " quote & quote & space & quote & "Joe PATIENT - bio checkup - 09?2013.pdf" & quote)
> get shell( "start " quote & quote & space & quote & "Joe PATIENT - bio checkup - 09/2013.pdf" & quote)
> 
I am not familiar with the command window nor with shell 
But sure I will do my best to try all your suggestions

Thank you very much Dar for your help and your time
I appreciate a lot

André