Bdtjtk

I'm working on a course selection script and each person should only be able to select three courses. I am having issues figuring out how to repeat choose from list if the user selects less than or more than three courses, and only proceed if three choices are selected. Converting the choices from the list to string should work however nothing happens after choosing from list

set theClassList to {"Math ", "English ", "Science ", "I&S ", "Design "}



repeat



set theClass to choose from list theClassList with prompt "Select three courses" with multiple selections allowed



set theClassString to theClass as string



if words in theClassString ≠ 3 then



    display dialog "Please select three courses"

    exit repeat



else if words in theClassString = 3 then

    display dialog "Ok"



end if

end repeat

It's a clever idea to count the words in the theClassString (which would be done using number of words in theClassString, instead of simply words in theClassString). This would work the majority of the time, until a user includes "I&S" as one of their options, which sadly counts as two words, "I" and "S", since the ampersand is not a word character.

You also had your exit repeat in the wrong half of the if...then...else block, since you want to break the loop when the user selects 3 courses, not when they fail to select 3 courses.

Rather than attempting to coerce the result of the list selection into a string, you ought to just count the number of items in the result, which can be done in one of three ways:

1. count theClass


2. length of theClass


3. number in theClass

Here's a reworked version of your script:

property theClassList : {"Math ", "English ", "Science ", "I&S ", "Design "}

property text item delimiters : linefeed



set choices to missing value



repeat

    if choices ≠ missing value then display dialog ¬

        "You must select precisely three courses"



    set choices to choose from list theClassList with prompt ¬

        "Select three courses" with multiple selections allowed



    if choices = false or the number of choices = 3 then exit repeat

end repeat



if choices = false then return

display dialog choices as text

...And here's a version that uses a recursive handler instead of a repeat loop:

property theClassList : {"Math", "English", "Science", "I&S", "Design"}

property text item delimiters : linefeed



to choose()

    tell (choose from list theClassList ¬

        with prompt ("Select three courses") ¬

        with multiple selections allowed) to ¬

        if it = false or its length = 3 then ¬

            return it



    display dialog "You must select precisely three courses"

    choose()

end choose



display alert (choose() as text)

to make it easier by respecting the fluidity of your script. It would be better to declare your "theClass" as a rather string list and declare n as count of list. Below is your modified script or the following that takes your own but declaring n to count of words in "theClassString".`

set theClassList to {"Math", "English", "Science", "I & S", "Design"}



repeat



set theClass to choose from list theClassList with prompt "Select three courses" with multiple selections allowed



set theClassString to theClass as list



set n to count of theClassString



set n to do shell script "echo" & n



if n ≠ "3" then



display dialog "Please select three courses"

exit repeat



else if n = "3" then

display dialog "Ok"



end if

end repeat

Below
By declaring String

set theClassList to {"Math ", "English ", "Science ", "I&S ", "Design "}



repeat



    set theClass to choose from list theClassList with prompt "Select three courses" with multiple selections allowed



    set theClassString to theClass as string



    set n to count of words in theClassString



    set n to do shell script "echo " & n



    if n ≠ "3" then



        display dialog "Please select three courses"

        exit repeat



    else if n = "3" then

        display dialog "Ok"



    end if

end repeat