Noodlesoft Forums

I have a rule which OCRs scanned PDFs and puts the text into an xattr. Then I match on the contents of the xattr to decide what to do with it.

However, Hazel doesn't give me a way to natively match xattrs, so I have to use a "Passes shell script" condition. Because of that, I don't appear to have the opportunity to pull bits out into custom attributes, which means I can't (for instance) rename the file based on the xattr's contents (without resorting to

Code: Select all

mv

in a shell script, which is proving messy).

Am I missing something? Or am I stuck doing my actions in Bash if I want to use the info from the xattr?

You can try using AppleScript. Shell scripts can be called from AppleScript though the resulting script may be a bit unwieldy. Nonetheless, something to try.

I'm not sure how that helps. AppleScripts can't add custom attributes any more than shell scripts can, can they?

Oh, they can! I was looking at old posts, not the actual Help Center docs. Thanks! That'll do nicely.

You got a solution for that? I am also desperately looking for a solution that allows my custom attributes to be used in a shell script. thanks!

As mentioned above, only possible with AppleScript (or JavaScript). You can execute shell scripts from AppleScript so you can go that route if you absolutely need to run a shell script in some form.