Language Guide

CHAPTER 4
Commands
Double Angle Brackets in Results and Scripts 83
commands show how to use the result variable to set the value of numWords
to the value returned by the Count command:
count words in paragraph 3
set numWords to result
When a direct parameter specifies more than one object, the result is a list that
contains a value for each object that was handled. Here is an example of a
command whose result is a list:
get paragraphs 1 thru 3 of first document
The result is a list of strings similar to the following. The first string is the value
of the first paragraph, the second string is the value of the second paragraph,
and the third string is the value of the third paragraph.
{"This is paragraph one.", "This is paragraph two." ¬
"This is paragraph three."}
Double Angle Brackets in Results and Scripts 4
You may occasionally notice terms like this within double angle brackets in a
script or a result:
«event sysodlog»
In general, AppleScript uses double angle brackets when it can’t locate the
dictionary it needs to identify a term or can’t display a value directly. The first
word within the double angle brackets can be any of these: event, property,
class, data, preposition, keyform, constant, or script. The second
word varies depending on the context.
If double angle brackets appear unexpectedly in a script when you open it with
the Script Editor, it may be because a command used in the script is not present
in the Scripting Additions folder (which is located in the Extensions folder of
the System folder) for your computer. For example, if you create a script that
uses the Display Dialog command, then open the script at a later time or on a