Inside Macintosh: AppleScript Language Guide / Part 2 - AppleScript Language Reference

Chapter 9 - Script Objects / Inheritance and Delegation

How Inheritance Works

To understand how inheritance works, think of a child script object as containing a hidden copy of each of the handlers and properties inherited from its parent. If the child does not have its own definition of a property or handler, it uses the inherited (hidden) property or handler. If the child has its own definition of a particular property or handler, then it ignores the inherited property or handler.

Figure 9-1 shows the relationship between a parent script object called John and a simple child script object called Simple. The figure includes two versions of the child script object. The version on the left shows the actual script object definition for the child script Simple. The version on the right shows how the script object definition would look with the inherited properties and handlers copied in. The inherited properties and handlers are shown between dotted lines, to indicate that they aren't actually a part of the script object definition for Simple. As you can see, Simple inherits the HowManyTimes property and the sayHello handler from its parent.

Figure 9-2 shows another parent-child relationship. As in the previous example, the child script object inherits the HowManyTimes property and the sayHello handler from its parent, John. But this time, the child script object, called Rebel, has its own HowManyTimes property, so it doesn't use the one inherited from the parent. In the figure, the inherited property that is not used is crossed out.

Figure 9-1 Relationship between a simple child script and its parent

Figure 9-2 Another child-parent relationship

Drawing diagrams like Figure 9-1 and Figure 9-2 can help you understand more complicated relationships between parent and child script objects. For example, if you were to guess the result of the following script without sketching a diagram, you might conclude that the result of the sayHello command is "Hello Emily". However, the correct result is "Hello Andrew", as you can see in Figure 9-3.

script X
   on sayHello()
      return "Hello, " & getName()
   end sayHello
   on getName()
      return "Emily"   end getName
end script
script Y
   property parent : X
   on getName()
      return "Andrew"   end getName
end script
tell Y to sayHello()

Figure 9-3 A more complicated child-parent relationship

Even though script X in Figure 9-3 sends itself the getName command, the command is intercepted by the child script, which substitutes its own version of the getName handler. AppleScript always maintains the first target of a command as the "self" to which inherited commands are sent, redirecting to the child any inherited commands the parent sends to itself.

The relationship between a parent script object and its child script objects is dynamic. If the properties of the parent change, so do the inherited properties of the children. For example, the script object Simple in the following script inherits its Vegetable property from script object John.

script John
   property Vegetable : "Spinach"end script
script Simple
   property parent : John
end script
set Vegetable of John to "Swiss chard"Vegetable of Simple
--result: "Swiss chard"

When you change the Vegetable property of script object John with the Set command, you also change the Vegetable property of the child script object Simple. The result of the last line of the script is "Swiss chard".

Similarly, if a child changes one of its inherited properties, the value of the parent property changes. For example, the script object JohnSon in the following script inherits the Vegetable property from script object John.

script John
   property Vegetable : "Spinach"end script
script JohnSon
   property parent : John
   on changeVegetable()
      set my Vegetable to "Zucchini"   end changeVegetable
end script
tell JohnSon to changeVegetable()
Vegetable of John
--result: "Zucchini"

When you change the Vegetable property of script object JohnSon to "Zucchini" with the changeVegetable command, the Vegetable
property of script object John also changes.

The previous example demonstrates an important point about inherited properties: to refer to an inherited property from within a child script object, you must use the reserved word my or of me to indicate that the value to which you're referring is a property of the current script object. (You can also use the words of parent to indicate that the value is a property of the parent script object.) If you don't, AppleScript assumes the value is a local variable.

For example, if you refer to Vegetable instead of my Vegetable in the changeVegetable handler in the previous example, the result is "Spinach".

script John
   property Vegetable : "Spinach"end script

script JohnSon
   property parent : John
   on changeVegetable()
      set Vegetable to "Zucchini" (* creates a local variable called
                                    Vegetable; doesn't change value of 
                                    the parent's Vegetable property *)
   end changeVegetable
end script

tell JohnSon to changeVegetable()
Vegetable of John
--result: "Spinach"