What's the difference between LC 'shell' and OSX terminal?

[Mike Bonner]

shell is a function, you have to actually do something with what is
returned.

notice if you do the following from the message box:
shell() with nothing, you get handler not found

If you do this instead
put shell() you get bad parameter because you didn't give the function
anything to work with.

So, if you do
put shell("/opt/local/bin/convert --help") you will most likely get the help
text for convert.

If you are doing it correctly, (IE as in the above examnple) and are still
getting a handler error, there is something else going on.

On Sat, Oct 29, 2011 at 8:40 AM, Graham Samuel <livfoss at mac.com> wrote:

> Thanks to all who replied.
>
> Just a brief reminder that I found I could invoke ImageMagick from Terminal
> on my Mac, but not via 'shell' within an LC program on the same machine.
>
> I really hoped that Andre's insight was right and that it was a path issue
> - really because I understand what one of those is! Anyway on your advice,
> Andre, I did:
>
>  which convert
>
> in Terminal, and got:
>
>  /opt/local/bin/convert
>
> I don't exactly know what 'opt' is, but I can open /opt/local/bin/ in the
> Mac Finder, so it exists OK, and it contains a file 'convert' as expected.
> Anyway I tried doing this in the LS message box:
>
>   shell(/opt/local/bin/convert)
>
> and got:
>
> Message execution error:
> Error description: Handler: can't find handler
> Hint: shell(/opt/local/bin/convert)
>
> I then set the defaultFolder to   /opt/local/bin/, and the Message Box
> couldn't even recognise 'shell'!
>
> So very sadly, that didn't work. Neither did it work when I put the whole
> shell argument in quotes, nor could shell find other commands such as
> 'which' or 'cd' with or without the path data.
>
> Andre's solution seems so logical… any more suggestions? Incidentally, on
> my machine shellCommand is set to:
>
>  /bin/sh
>
> which AFAIK is what it's supposed to be.
>
> TIA
>
> Graham
>
> Thanks also to Mike Bonner for his advice on command lines (some of which I
> understood, although I'd never heard of a profile in the sense Mike uses, so
> I am a bit at sea there). Also, although currently I'm just experimenting,
> I'm always looking for solutions which would work in a complete
> cross-platform app built for people who just want to use the computer as a
> tool. In that context any 'tinkering' with the environment would have to be
> done via LS, and within that via shell, so as to protect my user - I'm not
> sure if this is possible or not, but I'll keep trying to understand it. In
> my encounters with ImageMagick the really interesting thing I've learned so
> far is the philosophical difference between 'nix users and Mac/PC users -
> it's geeks versus consumers really. I was once a geek myself, in some pretty
> tough technical environments, but the reason I use LS is because I stopped
> being one.
>
>
>
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