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Inside Macintosh: Interapplication Communication /

Chapter 5 - Creating and Sending Apple Events / Reference to Creating and Sending Apple Events

Routines for Creating and Sending Apple Events / Adding Parameters and Attributes to Apple Events

AEPutAttributeDesc

You can use the AEPutAttributeDesc function to add a descriptor record and a keyword to an Apple event as an attribute.

FUNCTION AEPutAttributeDesc (theAppleEvent: AppleEvent;
                             theAEKeyword: AEKeyword; 
                             theAEDesc: AEDesc): OSErr;

theAppleEvent

The Apple event to which you are adding an attribute.

theAEKeyword

The keyword for the attribute to be added.

TYPE AEKeyword = PACKED ARRAY[1..4] OF Char;

The keyword can be any of the constants listed in the description of AEPutAttributePtr on page 5-36. If the Apple event already included an attribute with this keyword, the attribute is replaced.

theAEDesc

The descriptor record to be assigned to the attribute. The descriptor type of the specified descriptor record should match the defined descriptor type for that attribute. For example, the keyEventSourceAttr attribute has the typeShortInteger descriptor type.

DESCRIPTION

The AEPutAttributeDesc function takes a descriptor record and a keyword and adds them to an Apple event as an attribute. If the descriptor type required for the attribute is different from the descriptor type of the descriptor record, the Apple Event Manager attempts to coerce the descriptor record into the required type, with one exception: the Apple Event Manager does not attempt to coerce the data for an address attribute, thereby allowing applications to use their own address types.

RESULT CODES

noErr	0	No error
memFullErr	-108	Not enough room in heap zone
errAECoercionFail	-1700	Data could not be coerced to the requested descriptor type
errAENotAEDesc	-1704	Not a valid descriptor record

SEE ALSO

For an example of the use of AEPutAttributeDesc, see Listing 5-1 on page 5-9.