Availability: Macintosh.
The aepack module defines functions for converting (packing) Python variables to AppleEvent descriptors and back (unpacking). Within Python the AppleEvent descriptor is handled by Python objects of built-in type AEDesc, defined in module Carbon.AE.
The aepack module defines the following functions:
| x[, forcetype]) | 
| Python type | descriptor type | 
|---|---|
| FSSpec | typeFSS | 
| FSRef | typeFSRef | 
| Alias | typeAlias | 
| integer | typeLong (32 bit integer) | 
| float | typeFloat (64 bit floating point) | 
| string | typeText | 
| unicode | typeUnicodeText | 
| list | typeAEList | 
| dictionary | typeAERecord | 
| instance | see below | 
If x is a Python instance then this function attempts to call an __aepack__() method. This method should return an AEDesc object.
If the conversion x is not defined above, this function returns the Python string representation of a value (the repr() function) encoded as a text descriptor.
| x[, formodulename]) | 
line 3 of document 1) are returned as instances of
  aetypes.ObjectSpecifier, unless formodulename
  is specified.  AppleEvent descriptors with
  descriptor type typeFSS are returned as FSSpec
  objects.  AppleEvent record descriptors are returned as Python
  dictionaries, with 4-character string keys and elements recursively
  unpacked.
The optional formodulename argument is used by the stub packages
  generated by gensuitemodule, and ensures that the OSA classes
  for object specifiers are looked up in the correct module. This ensures
  that if, say, the Finder returns an object specifier for a window
  you get an instance of Finder.Window and not a generic
  aetypes.Window. The former knows about all the properties
  and elements a window has in the Finder, while the latter knows
  no such things.
See Also: