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Added safeguard against failure in __del__.
author Guido van Rossum <guido@python.org>
date Wed, 27 Nov 1996 19:39:58 +0000
parents 8900213764ba
children 391f08a9746b
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1 <HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Using Open Scripting Extension from Python</TITLE></HEAD>
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2 <BODY>
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3 <H1>Using Open Scripting Extension from Python</H1>
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4 <HR>
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5
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6 OSA support in Python is still far from complete, and what
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7 support there is is likely to change in the forseeable future. Still,
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8 there is already enough in place to allow you to do some nifty things
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9 to other programs from your python program. <P>
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10
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11 <CITE>
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12 Actually, when we say "AppleScript" in this document we actually mean
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13 "the Open Scripting Architecture", there is nothing
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14 AppleScript-specific in the Python implementation. <p>
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15 </CITE>
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16
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17 In this example, we will look at a scriptable application, extract its
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18 "AppleScript Dictionary" and generate a Python interface module from
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19 that and use that module to control the application. Because we want
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20 to concentrate on the OSA details we don't bother with a real
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21 user-interface for our application. <p>
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22
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23 The application we are going to script is Eudora Light, a free mail
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24 program from <A HREF="http://www.qualcomm.com">QualComm</A>. This is a
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25 very versatile mail-reader, and QualComm has an accompanying
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26 commercial version once your needs outgrow Eudora Light. Our program
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27 will tell Eudora to send queued mail, retrieve mail or quit. <p>
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28
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29 <H2>Creating the Python interface module</H2>
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30
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31 There is a tool in the standard distribution that looks through a file
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32 for an 'AETE' or 'AEUT' resource, the internal representation of the
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33 AppleScript dictionary. This tool is called
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34 <CODE>gensuitemodule.py</CODE>, and lives in
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35 <CODE>Mac:scripts</CODE>. When we start it, it asks us for an input
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36 file and we point it to the Eudora Light executable. It starts parsing
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37 the AETE resource, and for each AppleEvent suite it finds it prompts
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38 us for the filename of the resulting python module. Remember to change
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39 folders for the first module, you don't want to clutter up the Eudora
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40 folder with your python interfaces. If you want to skip a suite you
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41 press cancel and the process continues with the next suite. In the
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42 case of Eudora, you do <EM>not</EM> want to generate the Required
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43 suite, because it will be empty. AppleScript understands that an empty
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44 suite means "incorporate the whole standard suite by this name",
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45 gensuitemodule does not currently understand this. Creating the empty
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46 <CODE>Required_Suite.py</CODE> would hide the correct module of that
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47 name from our application. <p>
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48
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49 <BLOCKQUOTE>
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50 Time for a sidebar. If you want to re-create
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51 <CODE>Required_Suite.py</CODE> or one of the other standard modules
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52 you should look in <CODE>System Folder:Extensions:Scripting
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53 Additions:Dialects:English Dialect</CODE>, that is where the core
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54 AppleEvent dictionaries live. Also, if you are looking for the
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55 <CODE>Finder_Suite</CODE> interface: don't look in the finder (it has
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56 an old System 7.0 scripting suite), look at the extension <CODE>Finder
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57 Scripting Extension</CODE>. <p>
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58 </BLOCKQUOTE>
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59
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60 Let's glance at the <A
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61 HREF="scripting/Eudora_Suite.py">Eudora_Suite.py</A> just created. You
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62 may want to open Script Editor alongside, and have a look at how it
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63 interprets the dictionary. EudoraSuite.py starts with some
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64 boilerplate, then come some dictionaries implementing the OSA
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65 Enumerations, then a big class definition with methods for each
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66 AppleScript Verb and finally some comments. The Enumerations we will
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67 skip, it suffices to know that whenever you have to pass an enumerator
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68 to a method you can pass the english name and don't have to bother
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69 with the 4-letter type code. So, you can say
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70 <CODE><PRE>
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71 eudora.notice(occurrence="mail_arrives")
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72 </PRE></CODE>
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73 instead of the rather more cryptic
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74 <CODE><PRE>
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75 eudora.notice(occurrence="wArv")
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76 </PRE></CODE>
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77
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78 The <CODE>Eudora_Suite</CODE> class is the bulk of the code
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79 generated. For each verb it contains a method. Each method knows what
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80 arguments the verb expects, and it makes handy use of the keyword
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81 argument scheme introduced in Python 1.3 to present a palatable
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82 interface to the python programmer. You will see that each method
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83 calls some routines from <CODE>aetools</CODE>, an auxiliary module
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84 living in <CODE>Lib:toolbox</CODE> which contains some other nifty
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85 AppleEvent tools as well. Have a look at it sometime, there is (of
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86 course) no documentation yet. <p>
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87
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88 The other thing you notice is that each method calls
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89 <CODE>self.send</CODE>, but no such method is defined. You will have
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90 to provide it by subclassing or multiple inheritance, as we shall see
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91 later. <p>
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92
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93 The module ends with some comments. Sadly, gensuitemodule is not yet
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94 able to turn the Object Specifiers into reasonable Python code. For
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95 now, if you need object specifiers, you will have to use the routines
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96 defined in <CODE>aetools.py</CODE> (and <CODE>aetypes.py</CODE>, which
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97 it incorporates). You use these in the form <CODE>aetools.Word(10,
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98 aetools.Document(1))</CODE> where the corresponding AppleScript
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99 terminology would be <CODE>word 10 of the first
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100 document</CODE>. Examine the two modules mentioned above along with
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101 the comments at the end of your suite module if you need to create
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102 more than the standard object specifiers. <p>
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103
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104 <H2>Using a Python suite module</H2>
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105
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106 Now that we have created the suite module we can use it in an
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107 application. We do this by creating a class that inherits
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108 <CODE>Eudora_Suite</CODE> and the <CODE>TalkTo</CODE> class from
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109 <CODE>aetools</CODE>. The <CODE>TalkTo</CODE> class is basically a
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110 container for the <CODE>send</CODE> method used by the methods from
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111 the suite classes. <p>
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112
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113 Actually, our class will also inherit <CODE>Required_Suite</CODE>,
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114 because we also need functionality from that suite: the quit
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115 command. Gensuitemodule could have created this completely derived
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116 class for us, since it has access to all information needed to build
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117 the class but unfortunately it does not do so at the moment. All in
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118 all, the heart of our program looks like this:
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119 <CODE><PRE>
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120 import Eudora_Suite, Required_Suite, aetools
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121
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122 class Eudora(aetools.TalkTo, Required_Suite.Required_Suite, \
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123 Eudora_Suite.Eudora_Suite):
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124 pass
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125 </PRE></CODE>
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126
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127 Yes, our class body is <CODE>pass</CODE>, all functionality is already
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128 provided by the base classes, the only thing we have to do is glue it
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129 together in the right way. <p>
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130
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131 Looking at the sourcefile <A
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132 HREF="scripting/testeudora.py">testeudora.py</A> we see that it starts
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133 with some imports. Then we get the class definition
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134 for our main object and a constant giving the signature of Eudora. <p>
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135
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136 This, again, needs a little explanation. There are various ways to
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137 describe to AppleScript which program we want to talk to, but the
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138 easiest one to use (from Python, at least) is creator
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139 signature. Application name would be much nicer, but Python currently
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140 does not have a module that interfaces to the Finder database (which
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141 would allow us to map names to signatures). The other alternative,
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142 <CODE>ChooseApplication</CODE> from the program-to-program toolbox, is
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143 also not available from Python at the moment. <p>
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144
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145 If you specify the application by creator you can specify an optional
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146 <CODE>start</CODE> parameter, which will cause the application to be
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147 started if it is not running. <P>
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148
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149 The main program itself is a wonder of simplicity. We create the
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150 object that talks to Eudora (passing the signature as argument), ask
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151 the user what she wants and call the appropriate method of the talker
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152 object. The use of keyword arguments with the same names as used by
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153 AppleScript make passing the parameters a breeze. <p>
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154
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155 The exception handling does need a few comments, though. Since
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156 AppleScript is basically a connectionless RPC protocol nothing happens
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157 when we create to talker object. Hence, if the destination application
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158 is not running we will not notice until we send our first
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159 command. There is another thing to note about errors returned by
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160 AppleScript calls: <CODE>MacOS.Error</CODE> is raised for
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161 all of the errors that are known to be <CODE>OSErr</CODE>-type errors,
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162 server generated errors raise <CODE>aetools.Error</CODE>. <p>
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163
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164 That concludes our simple example. Again, let me emphasize that
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165 scripting support in Python is not very complete at the moment, and
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166 the details of how to use AppleEvents will definitely change in the
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167 near future. This will not only fix all the ideosyncracies noted in
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168 this document but also break existing programs, since the current
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169 suite organization will have to change to fix some of the problems.
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170 Still, if you want to experiment with AppleEvents right now: go ahead!
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171 <p>