Help with File Attributes & Shell Script

[a_freyer]

I would like to extract some data from a string stored in file attributes. Specifically there "wherefrom" attribute. I want to use the extracted string for renaming a file.

So far, shell scripts have come up bust for me as I'm not skilled at all.
So far, automator scripts don't seem to be able to retrieve attributes.

Hazel can't do this by default.

Any thoughts?

[Mr_Noodle]

You can try the 'mdls' command and scrape out the where froms from that using some combination of 'grep', 'cut' or 'sed'. It can get a bit involved though but I'd start there.

[a_freyer]

I'll see where that goes. Thanks.

[alastor933]

This automator action will list all metadata for selected files in a terminal window.
Look at the script inside to figure out how it's done.

[sjk]

Look at the script inside to figure out how it's done.

That 7-line script is also shown on the developer's site.