Calling applescript in R - r

Question

Is there any way to run an applescript within R?
I found this reference in an R FAQ on CRAN
From release 1.3.1 R has partial support for AppleScripts. This means two things: you can run applescripts from inside R using the command applescript() (see the corresponding help)
But in my current version of R
R version 3.4.1 (2017-06-30)
Platform: x86_64-apple-darwin15.6.0 (64-bit)
Running under: macOS High Sierra 10.13.6
neither applescript() nor ?applescript() returns anything.
Thanks, Simon

Answer 1

Those features aren't in modern R versions (IIRC they harken back to pre-macOS/Mac OS X days).
However, the applescript() function performed no magic:
applescript <- function(script_source, extra_args = c()) {
script_source <- paste0(script_source, collapse = "\n")
tf <- tempfile(fileext = ".applescript")
on.exit(unlink(tf), add=TRUE)
cat(script_source, file = tf)
osascript <- Sys.which("osascript")
args <- c(extra_args, tf)
system2(
command = osascript,
args = args,
stdout = TRUE
) -> res
invisible(res)
}
So you can do anything with it, like open a folder:
applescript(
sprintf(
'tell app "Finder" to open POSIX file "%s"',
Sys.getenv("R_DOC_DIR")
)
)
or, query an app and return data:
res <- applescript('
tell application "iTunes"
set r_name to name of current track
set r_artist to artist of current track
end
return "artist=" & r_artist & "\ntrack=" & r_name
')
print(res)
## [1] "artist=NICO Touches the Walls" "track=Hologram"
For (mebbe) easier usage (I say "mebbe" as the pkg relies on reticulate for some things) I added this to the macthekinfe macOS-centric R package.