on run
   set dlgReply to (display dialog "Get a Yahoo! stock quote for this symbol:" ¬
      default answer "AAPL" buttons {"Get Quote", "Cancel"} default button 1 ¬
      giving up after 30)
   if button returned of dlgReply is "Cancel" then return
   set daSymbol to allCaps(text returned of dlgReply)
   -- make a temp file
   set myFile to ((path to temporary items) as string) & "Stock Quote Script Temp"
   -- fetch quote page
   tell application "URL Access Scripting"
      download "http://finance.yahoo.com/q" to file myFile replacing yes ¬
         form data "s=" & daSymbol & "&d=v1"
      quit
   end tell
   -- read HTML into a variable
   open for access file myFile
   set quoteHTML to (read file myFile to (get eof file myFile))
   close access file myFile
   -- find the lines with the last trade date and last price
   -- Note: Yahoo changes their HTML format, this needs to change too. 
   set startTag to daSymbol & "</a></td>" & (ASCII character 10)
   set daStart to (the offset of startTag in quoteHTML) + (the length of startTag)
   set daCount to 1
   copy "" to lastTrade
   copy "" to lastPrice
   repeat
      if text from character (daStart + daCount) to (daStart + daCount + 1) ¬
         of quoteHTML is "/t" then
         if lastTrade is "" then
            set lastTrade to text from character daStart to (daStart + daCount - 2) ¬
               of quoteHTML
            set daStart to daStart + daCount + 5
            set daCount to 1
         else
            set lastPrice to text from character daStart to (daStart + daCount - 2) ¬
               of quoteHTML
            exit repeat
         end if
      end if
      set daCount to daCount + 1
   end repeat
   --
   tell application "Finder" to delete file myFile
   set lastTrade to stripHTMLTags(lastTrade)
   if lastTrade contains ":" then
      -- markets are open, so it's a time
      set lastTrade to "at " & lastTrade
   else
      -- martets are closed, so it's a date
      set lastTrade to "on " & lastTrade
   end if
   display dialog "Yahoo says " & daSymbol & " last traded " & lastTrade & ¬
      " at $" & stripHTMLTags(lastPrice) & "." with icon 1 ¬
      buttons "OK" default button 1 giving up after 30
end run


on allCaps(daText)
   -- very messy capitalization routine
   copy "" to newText
   repeat with i from 1 to the count of character in daText
      set curChar to character i of daText
      set curNum to ASCII number curChar
      if (curNum > 96) and (curNum < 123) then
         set newText to (newText & (ASCII character (curNum - 32))) as string
      else
         set newText to (newText & curChar) as string
      end if
   end repeat
   return newText
end allCaps


on stripHTMLTags(HTML)
   -- slow, and fails on bad HTML that doesn't use entities for < and >
   -- but, requires no OSAXen and is good enough for now.
   set intag to false
   set newText to ""
   repeat with i from 1 to count of character in HTML
      set curChar to character i of HTML
      if curChar is "<" then set intag to true
      if not intag then set newText to (newText & curChar) as string
      if curChar is ">" then set intag to false
   end repeat
   return newText
end stripHTMLTags