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RichardP · Nov 19, 2001, 03:53 PM

Wow! I've just written my first useful applescript, which I've called Search+destroy. Here it is:

<BLOCKQUOTE>code:<HR><pre> display dialog "Find the name of the application to search for:" default answer "Finder" buttons {"Cancel", "OK"} default button 2
copy the result as list to {application_name, button_pressed}
tell application "Terminal"
do script with command "ps -auxww | grep '" & application_name & "' | grep -v grep | grep $LOGNAME | awk '{print $2}' | pbcopy"
delay (1)
close window 1
end tell
tell application "Finder"
activate
set appnum to the clipboard
display dialog "The PID of the application '" & application_name & "' is: " & appnum buttons {"Kill " & application_name, "Exit"} default button 2 with icon note
copy the result as list to {button_pressed}
if the button_pressed is "Kill " & application_name then
tell application "Terminal"
do script with command "kill -9 " & appnum
delay (1)
close window 1
end tell
end if
end tell
[/code]

So, that's it. Copy it into script editor and compile it - see what you think.
Some of the terminal code was borrowed from Apple's restart menu server script, available from their site.

All in all, I'm very pleased with it (except for the terminal windows opening in the background.

Tell me what you think....

bluedog · Nov 19, 2001, 04:48 PM

I like the style of this script. I've always wondered *why* one would have to find the process ID to kill an app. Why not just by name. I would be careful to type in something like 'e' as an app name. Or any other generic type thing. Like 'Microsoft', hey now that's not a bad idea!?!

Millennium · Nov 19, 2001, 06:02 PM

Careful with this one. I can see two problems:[list=1][*]What happens if you don't have permissions for the app you want to kill? If you can't kill the app, there should be some kind of notice that it couldn't be killed.[*]What about multiple instances of the same app (which will have the same name)? How do you pick which one you want to kill?[/list=a]

bluedog · Nov 19, 2001, 06:57 PM

I have to agree with Millenium, this script has the potential to do more harm than good if there aren't additional checks and safeguards put in.

Really, now that I think about it, what apps would you want to kill that aren't in the "Force Quit" window? If you don't really want the unix processes running in the background, don't start them up and find the ways to keep them from automatically starting (different depending on the app and its origin).

benh57 · Nov 20, 2001, 12:46 AM

Originally posted by bluedog:
I have to agree with Millenium, this script has the potential to do more harm than good if there aren't additional checks and safeguards put in.

Don't rain on the guy's parade now.

Programming is fun. It is great to make a program that actually works.

Now try some of the Cocoa tutorials Richard -
http://www.cocoadevcentral.com/ - see specifically the "Wrapping UNIX Commands" tutorials.

-Ben

RichardP · Nov 20, 2001, 01:24 PM

Thanks for the suggestions (Millennium and bluedog) and support (cheers ben!).

I might try and improve it at a later date, but I'm really busy at the moment and was just pleased to get it working.

As for multiple instances of the same app, I didn't realise that this was possible (in the GUI at least). And yes, what about permissions? I've never had a problem with permissions, personally, so I dunno.

Yes, I'm also aware of the problem of entering a very loose search string into the search dialogue box, but I'm really not familiar enough with Applescript to allow the user to choose which application to kill yet.

...but thanks again for the comments (esp. benh57!

)

Synotic · Nov 20, 2001, 01:56 PM

Originally posted by RichardP:
I'm really not familiar enough with Applescript to allow the user to choose which application to kill yet.

tell application "Finder" to set allProcesses to name of every process

choose from list allProcesses OK button name "Choose" with prompt "Which app would you like to kill?"

Wevah · Nov 20, 2001, 05:23 PM

Personally...I wish OS X had come with killall so I could do something like:

killall httpd

instead of:

ps aux | grep httpd

*pull out pid's*

kill <pid>;kill <pid> ....

(Just as an example...)

benh57 · Nov 20, 2001, 11:15 PM

Originally posted by Wevah:
Personally...I wish OS X had come with killall so I could do something like:

killall httpd

instead of:

ps aux | grep httpd
*pull out pid's*
kill <pid>;kill <pid> ....

Use xargs.

ps ax | grep -i "httpd" | grep -v grep | cut -c 1-6 | xargs kill

will kill all pids that match httpd.

You could put this into a small shell script called "killall". Replate the "httpd" above with $1 so the first argument will go there and make it executable.

-Ben

[ 11-21-2001: Message edited by: benh57 ]

Wevah · Nov 22, 2001, 03:43 PM

Why, thank you....now I can avoid compiling psmisc on here...

Jelle Monkmater · Nov 26, 2001, 02:00 AM

This is what I put into a little script to 'kill all':

kill $1 (ps ax|grep $2|grep -v grep|awk '{print $1}')

In the commandline I'd type 'killall -9 [appname]', with -9 translating to $1 and [appname] to $2.

As for a failsafe, I put it in this form:

#!/usr/bin/sh
if [ $1 = "" ] | [ $2 = "" ]
then
echo "Usage: killpid [kill type] [argument]..."
else
kill $1 $(ps ax | grep $2 | grep -v grep|awk '{print $1}') >/dev/console 2>&1
fi

Mind you, I'm also the only user, so safety isn't a priority. However, if the action was successful, the message 'Killed' will appear, and if you care to, you could see if that's the case and warn if it doesn't.

On the other hand, you could add:

KILLED=$(ps ax | grep $2 | grep -v grep|awk '{print $1}')

and then check whether $KILLED has a value, and if so, warn.