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How to get the a file URL in OSX with AppleScript or a shell script?

I try to hack together a Keyboard Maestro shortcut to give me the URL to a file (just like the ones Path Finder outputs).

So far I use the following AppleScript and replace the spaces with %20:

tell application "Finder"
    set sel to the selection as text
    set the clipboard to POSIX path of sel
end tell

Then I simply append file://localhost/.

The problem is when it comes to special characters, for example I got the following folder on my Desktop:

My output: file://localhost//Users/patte/Desktop/#%20Old%20files

The correct output should convert the hash: file://localhost/Users/patte/Desktop/%23%20Old%20files

A solution with AppleScript or Shell script would be great since I'm capable of incorporate this. I also tried set the clipboard to URL of the first item of (get the selection) but this hasn't worked for me - maybe I did it wrong.

Another option would be a script that encodes the special characters - I could also work with that, but I'm not sure what to convert into what - else I'd have look for it.

Solution

  • this is lifted almost verbatim from this answer i.e. leverage python's urllib to quote the string appropriately before adding in the file://localhost to the start of the string

    on path2url(thepath)
    return do shell script "python -c \"import urllib, sys; print (urllib.quote(sys.argv[1]))\" " & quoted form of thepath
end path2url

tell application "Finder"
    set sel to the selection as text
    set the clipboard to "file://localhost" & my path2url(POSIX path of sel)
end tell

    I've added parentheses around the print in order to make the python script compatible between python 2.x and python 3.