Carbon


AEDesc

Header: AEDataModel.h

Stores data and an accompanying descriptor type to form the basic building block of all Apple Events.

struct AEDesc {
    DescType descriptorType; 
    AEDataStorage dataHandle;
};
typedef AEDesc AEAddressDesc;

Field descriptions

descriptorType

A four-character code of type DescType that indicates the type of data in the structure.

dataHandle

An opaque storage type that points to the storage for the descriptor data. Your application doesn’t access this data directly—rather, it calls one of the functions AEGetDescDataSize, AEGetDescData, or AEReplaceDescData.

The Apple Event Manager uses one or more descriptor records to construct Apple event attributes and parameters, object specifier records, tokens, and many other types of data it works with. (Token is defined in AEDisposeToken.) A descriptor record consists of an opaque data storage container and a descriptor type that identifies the type of the data stored in the descriptor.

The descriptor type is a structure of type DescType, which in turn is of data type ResType—that is, a four-character code. “Descriptor Type Constants” lists the constants for the basic descriptor types used by the Apple Event Manager. For information about descriptor types used with object specifier records, see “Key Form and Descriptor Type Object Specifier Constants”.

VERSION NOTES

Prior to Carbon, theAEDataStorage data type was defined as follows:

typedef Handle AEDataStorage;


© 2000 Apple Computer, Inc. (Last Updated 6/30/2000)