Sometimes it happens that the appearance of your script is changed in ways you never intended. For example, you carefully use the line continuation character to break up a long line of code, like this:

set r to display dialog "What is your favorite color?" ¬
  default answer "Blue. No, red!" ¬
  buttons "Aaaaaaaagh!" ¬
  default button "Aaaaaaaagh!" ¬
  with title "A Crucial Test"

But suddenly it appears broken up all incorrectly, like this:

set r to display dialog ¬
    "What is your favorite color?" default answer ¬
    "Blue. No, red!" buttons ¬
    "Aaaaaaaagh!" default button ¬
    "Aaaaaaaagh!" with title "A Crucial Test"

Why is Script Debugger doing this to you? We’re sorry this is happening, but Script Debugger has nothing to do with it. It’s a “feature” of AppleScript. It has to do with the fact that a script is compiled into bytecode and then displayed to you in decompiled form. There are some annoying behaviors deep within that round-trip process, and this is one of them. There’s nothing Script Debugger can do to prevent it.

A related behavior is that although AppleScript will let you use a term’s synonym, it will also sometimes replace the synonym in the decompiled script. So, for example, close document 2 saving false is legal, but it is changed to close document 2 without saving (and you are probably familiar with the expansion of app to application, ref to a reference to, and so forth).