global

The global methods and properties for ExtendScript.

Methods:

alert, confirm, decodeURI, decodeURIComponent, encodeURI, encodeURIComponent, escape, eval, isFinite, isNaN, isXMLName, localize, parseFloat, parseInt, prompt, setDefaultXMLNamespace, unescape, uneval

Objects:

Application, Number,

Property Listing

Property

Type

Access

Description

Infinity

Number

read/write

The Infinity global property is a predefined variable with the value for infinity.

NaN

Number

read/write

The NaN global property is a predefined variable with the value NaN (Not-a-Number), as specified by the IEEE-754 standard.

app

Application

readonly

The application object

undefined

Undefined

read/write

This global property is a predefined variable with the value for an undefined value.

Method Listing

undefined alert (message:String, [title:String], errorIcon:Boolean=Boolean)

Displays an alert box

Parameter

Type

Description

message

String

The text to display

title

String

The title of the alert; ignored on the Macintosh

errorIcon

Boolean

Display an Error icon; ignored on the Macintosh

(default: false)

Boolean confirm (message:String, noAsDefault:Boolean=Boolean, [title:String])

Displays an alert box with Yes and No buttons; returns true for Yes

Parameter

Type

Description

message

String

The text to display

noAsDefault

Boolean

Set to true to set the No button as the default button

(default: false)

title

String

The title of the alert; ignored on the Macintosh

String decodeURI (uri:String)

Decodes a string created with encodeURI().

Parameter

Type

Description

uri

String

The text to decode.

String decodeURIComponent (uri:String)

Decodes a string created with encodeURIComponent().

Parameter

Type

Description

uri

String

The text to decode.

String encodeURI (text:String)

Encodes a string after RFC2396.

Create an UTF-8 ASCII encoded version of this string. The string is converted into UTF-8. Every non-alphanumeric character is encoded as a percent escape character of the form %xx, where xx is the hex value of the character. After the conversion to UTF-8 encoding and escaping, it is guaranteed that the string does not contain characters codes greater than 127. The list of characters not to be encoded is -_.!~*'();/?:@&=+$,#. The method returns false on errors.

Parameter

Type

Description

text

String

The text to encode.

String encodeURIComponent (text:String)

Encodes a string after RFC2396.

Create an UTF-8 ASCII encoded version of this string. The string is converted into UTF-8. Every non-alphanumeric character is encoded as a percent escape character of the form %xx, where xx is the hex value of the character. After the conversion to UTF-8 encoding and escaping, it is guaranteed that the string does not contain characters codes greater than 127. The list of characters not to be encoded is -_.!~*'(). The method returns false on errors.

Parameter

Type

Description

text

String

The text to encode.

String escape (aString:String)

Creates a URL-encoded string from aString.

In the new string, characters of aString that require URL encoding are replaced with the format %xx, where xx is the hexadecimal value of the character code in the Unicode character set. This format is used to transmit information appended to a URL during, for example, execution of the GET method. Use the unescape() global function to translate the string back into its original format. Returns a string which is aString URL-encoded.

Parameter

Type

Description

aString

String

The string to be encoded.

Varies eval (stringExpression:String)

Evaluates its argument as a JavaScript script, and returns the result of evaluation.

You can pass the result of an object's toSource() method to reconstruct that object.

Parameter

Type

Description

stringExpression

String

The string to evaluate.

Boolean isFinite (expression:Number)

Evaluates an expression and reports whether the result is a finite number.

Returns true if the expression is a finite number, false otherwise. False if the value is infinity or negative infinity.

Parameter

Type

Description

expression

Number

Any valid JavaScript expression.

Boolean isNaN (expression:Number)

Evaluates an expression and reports whether the result is "Not-a-Number" (NaN).

Returns true if the result of evaluation is not a number (NaN), false if the value is a number.

Parameter

Type

Description

expression

Number

Any valid JavaScript expression.

Boolean isXMLName (name:String)

Returns true if the supplied string is a valid XML name.

Parameter

Type

Description

name

String

The XML name to test.

String localize (what:String, [argument:Varies])

Localizes a ZString-encoded string and merges additional arguments into the string.

Parameter

Type

Description

what

String

The string to localize. A ZString-encoded string that can contain placeholder for additional arguments in the form %1 to %n.

argument

Varies

Optional argument(s) to be merged into the string. There may be more than one argument.

Number parseFloat (text:String)

Extracts a floating-point number from a string.

Parses a string to find the first set of characters that can be converted to a floating point number, and returns that number, or NaN if it does not encounter characters that it can converted to a number. The function supports exponential notation.

Parameter

Type

Description

text

String

The string from which to extract a floating point number.

Number parseInt (text:String, [base:Number])

Extracts an integer from a string.

Parses a string to find the first set of characters, in a specified base, that can be converted to an integer, and returns that integer, or NaN if it does not encounter characters that it can convert to a number.

Parameter

Type

Description

text

String

The string from which to extract an integer.

base

Number (range 2 - 36)

The base of the string to parse (from base 2 to base 36).

If not supplied, base is determined by the format of string.

String prompt (prompt:String, [default:String], [title:String])

Displays a dialog allowing the user to enter text

Returns null if the user cancelled the dialog, the text otherwise

Parameter

Type

Description

prompt

String

The text to display

default

String

The default text to preset the edit field with

title

String

The title of the dialog;

undefined setDefaultXMLNamespace (namespace:Namespace)

Defines the default XML namespace.

This is a replacement function for the standard JavaScript statement set default xml namespace.

Parameter

Type

Description

namespace

Namespace

The namespace to use.

Omit this parameter to return to the empty namespace. This is either a Namespace object or a string.

String unescape (stringExpression:String)

Translates URL-encoded string into a regular string, and returns that string.

Use the escape() global function to URL-encode strings.

Parameter

Type

Description

stringExpression

String

The URL-encoded string to convert.

String uneval (what:Varies)

Creates a source code representation of the supplied argument, and returns it as a string.

Parameter

Type

Description

what

Varies

The object to uneval.