Read a text file with Automator.app line by line

Question

I'm a novice at coding so please be patient with me.

I've created a Workflow with Automator (OSX) which works fine. The only issue I have is that I want it to run on a number of inputs (that is as a batch). I've inserted the Loop action but the problem I'm having is about changing the initial input each time.

I would like to use an applescript to automate the insertion of the initial input each time.

I have a TXT file with URLs. With an apple script, I'd like to copy a URL (or a line of text) to clipboard. In the next iteration I'd like to copy the next URL (or line of text).

Can anyone help?

Thank you!!

Answer 1

You can create one looping workflow (called as LinesToClipboard.workflow) what will

• get a line from an text file (not rtf, or doc)
• copy the line to clipboard
• run your current workflow
• loop again for the next line

The workflow:

• Create new automator workflow
• create a variable
  • at the bottom find the icon "Show or hide the workflow variables list" and show the workflow wariables (empty)
  • right click and "New variable..."
  • name the variable as "LineNumber"
• add actions:
  • Get Value of Variable (LineNumber)
  • Run Shell Script
  • shell: /bin/bash
  • important: change the Pass input to as arguments
  • add the following content (copy exactly, with all quotes and such):
  • in the content of script, change the /etc/passwd to the full path of your filename, like /Users/myname/Documents/myfile.txt
  • at the end of this action the clipboard will contain one line from the file

linenum=${1:-0}
filename="/etc/passwd" # full path of your text-filename
let linenum++
sed -n "${linenum}p" < "$filename" | pbcopy
echo $linenum

• Set Value of Variable (LineNumber)
• Run Workflow - add your current workflow (or the "ShowClipboard.workflow" - see bellow)
  • the Wait for workflow to finish should be checked
  • important The Output menu should be: "Return action input"
• Loop
  • add your count...
• Run Shell Script (Ignore this action's input), content one line: echo 0 (This will reset the variable LineNumber to zero, when the loop ends)
• Set Value of Variable (LineNumber)

For testing, you can create another workflow, called ShowClipboard.workflow, with an content:

• Get Contents of Cliboard
• Set Value of Variable (clipval)
• Ask for confirmation (and drag the (clipval) to the Message field)

Run the first workflow.

Screenshots (for sure) :)

The second workflow (for testing)

Answer 2

You don't need AppleScript to get the URLs but can directly extract them with Automator by using a shell task. After using the task that's getting contents of a folder (this is a Finder task in Automator), add a shell task as the next task. Make sure you select that the input is send as arguments instead of sending it to stdin. When you have done that you only need something like one of the following shell scripts.

cat $@ | egrep -io '\S?(http|https|ftp|afp|smb|mailto|webcal):\S+''

It first read all the files using cat. The $@ is a shell variable that contains the arguments collected by the previous task: A list of paths to all files of batch folder. We pipe them to egrep will which will only output the URL filtered by their schemes. If you want to support any scheme (official and unofficial schemes):

cat $@ | egrep -io '\S?[A-Z][A-Z0-9+-.]+:\S+'