Can’t read filepath as File() makes whitespace to %20

[Filip Vandueren]

But why do you need to change the %20?
The File object points to the File, does it not?

What do you mean by “place the string into File()” ?

[Filip Vandueren]

Once you’ve created the file with a path, you can get different properties of that file such as

f.fsName; (dependant on your platform)
f.fullName; (independant of platform)
(on my mac these two are the same, I suppose on windows fsName would use reverse slashes)
f.absoluteURI;
f.relativeURI;
f.path;
…

But if you’re just asking what “f” is -> it’s an object representing a file,
and if you $.writeln(f) it’s the same as $.writeln(f.toString)
which happens to return f.absoluteURI.

I think you want/expact f.fullName;
although to just manipulate the file (read from it or write to it), there’s no need -> just use f

[Crystal Goh]

I need it to change because the script Im working also will edit the contents in .txt after a button onClick, i have no clue why the file can read the .txt file and import its data in, but I can’t save in new data to it with these ‘%20’, even if im taking the same variable (f) containing the file in it


var filPathStr = "~/Program Files/Adobe/Adobe After Effects 2020/Support Files/Scripts/ScriptUI/txt.txt";
var f = File (filPathStr);
// f == c/Program%20Files/Adobe/Adobe%20After%20Effects%202020/Support%20Files/Scripts/ScriptUI/txt.txt;

f.open("w");
f.write("data");
f.close();

// new data written into 'f' still not reflected in the txt.txt file


Thing is the script is actually working, just that when %20 isnt involved in the file’s Path.

[Filip Vandueren]

Are you sure that’s the case for every path with a space, and not due to your script not having the privileges to write to this specific path.

[Crystal Goh]

Positive on that.

But now that you mention that I think its really odd, I might probably do a factory reset or something because I used an older ver of the script in my workflow and that same line of code worked fine, maybe thats a solution for it

Thank you!

[Tomas Bumbulevičius]

Hey Crystal, few ideas and suggestion from my end:

1. It is wise to use space-separators instead of spaces in file names, thus then you don’t need to bother much about spacing compatibilities, especially cross-os. (But I get a problem of ‘Program Files’ (: )
2. Buut, you shouldn’t do replacement of encoded characters in a string, as its not reliable (if there will be more encoded chars than spaces alone, solution will come shprt). Instead, using decodeURI(string), when string is built – all you need to do is generate a new file path, from a string:

var yourNewFilePath = new File (decodedStringPath)

Find out more:
Motion Graphics Design & After Effects Tutorials
On YT
On VH

[Crystal Goh]

Hi Tomas, thanks for taking the time for replying!

Sadly I’ve tried those and they didnt turn out well..

1- I felt it was risky to change /Adobe After Effects/ path, which official comes with the spaces, so I didn’t rouch it

2- It was something I’ve tried, but it still returns back the %20, because I may have decoded the string, but once I made it back as a path using new File(), the %20 returns, like as if asking a new File encodes back the URI.

Thanks for the comment still! Appreciate it